


That Which We Carry

by godtierfics (godtiercomplex)



Category: xxxHoLic
Genre: F/M, Falling In Love, M/M, Multi, Self-Acceptance, Self-Sacrifice, Shizuka and Kohane get married for Watanuki's sake, That is Loving Watanuki, The Doumeki Family Curse, The life and times of one Doumeki Shizuka, death from natural causes, is it cheating if no one involved thinks its cheating but their son does, the character death(s) are from old age
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:42:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 29,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23911021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/godtiercomplex/pseuds/godtierfics
Summary: “Love is what I want for you to experience in the future, Shizuka. It’ll be like nothing you’ve ever experienced before. I want you to have a passionate love instead of a dispassionate one. Never settle for less. My sincerest wish is that you find the person you’re meant to be with, and stay with them for the rest of your life.”“So, you believe there’s someone we’re all meant to be with?”“Wholeheartedly,” Haruka said, “Your grandmother was my soulmate, and I just know you’ll find yours. I can’t help but think though, that they won’t be a woman.”The life and times of one Doumeki Shizuka and the man he fell in love with.
Relationships: Doumeki Shizuka & Tsuyuri Kohane, Doumeki Shizuka & Tsuyuri Kohane & Watanuki Kimihiro, Doumeki Shizuka/Watanuki Kimihiro
Comments: 43
Kudos: 115





	1. A Garden for You and Me

**Author's Note:**

> Please forgive any spelling/grammar/tense changes that are in this piece. 
> 
> I wrote and finished this in 2015 when I was in my deep, dark depression about DouWata and needed to vent my frustrations. I then didn't touch it again until now. As such, this piece is completed but not edited as I honestly do not want to go through the hassle of updating this story from my 2015 writing style to my 2020 writing style. 
> 
> Please enjoy!

Shizuka was born in the early morning of March 3rd, 19xx. His mother, Doumeki Ayame, had labored hard with him, and now she had to listen to the doctors tell her that they didn’t think he would last through the day. But he did, to their surprise. He did not, however, magically get stronger or better. He remained frail and sickly. If there was a sickness going around he was the first to catch it, and would leave him bedridden for days. Her small son would lay on his futon, and just cough and cough. He would cough, a deathly rattle as air left his lungs and hurt him as it entered again, and she started to fear that he would die between each wheezy breath. She would rest her head on his chest, and just listen for signs of life night after night. She did this for years. And for years, nothing changed. Shizuka was a weak baby, and it upset her that her only child was like this.

Ayame feared for his life, and thus turned to her father-in-law for help. She did not want to do this, but she feared for her only son’s life if she did not. He was three years old, and his doctor seemed amazed each check up that he was still alive. Ayame was nursing Shizuka through a cold, when Haruka finally arrived at an answer for her. It had taken him so long that she was ready to do whatever he said. Haruka stood like a shadow in the doorway, casting a long one over Shizuka as he spoke.

“If you want him to be stronger,” Haruka had said, “you must do exactly what I say.”

So, Ayame did. She dressed her son in girl’s clothing, and took him to the shrine each day to pray. She let his hair grow out, and she cut in a feminine style. Shizuka’s father had nothing to say to this, as he was absent physically and emotionally from their lives. He had his own life to live, Ayame figured.

They weren’t in love, not in the traditional sense. She had just gotten herself pregnant and he had done the right thing, the Doumeki thing. She took her duties as the wife of a temple man seriously, but he did not take his duties seriously. He was gone more often than not, leaving her alone with her infant son, and his father, Haruka. She didn’t know what her husband did, but that didn’t matter. She was a married woman, and not a social outcast, and she’d take that anyday rather than anything else. It wasn’t the life she had wanted for herself, but she was okay with it. She made her peace with it. That’s what she told herself at least.

Shizuka grew stronger, and more robust, but still was frail in her eyes. She kept him home from kindergarten in hopes that he’d be well enough to attend the first grade without any problems. She wanted only the best for her son, and hoped for only the best for him. She brought him all the books she could, so that he was educated and caught up with the rest of his year when he would finally be strong enough to go with them. He talked to Haruka often, and when the old man wasn’t working, he would teach him mythology. Haruka did not refer to it as mythology though, but taught them as facts of life. Ayame did not approve, and she often told her father-in-law that, but he didn’t care.

Her opinion in these matters _didn’t_ matter because she wasn’t a Doumeki by blood. She was a stranger in her own home sometimes, bound only by her beloved son, and her wishes for him. She refused to leave the temple as she saw it as part of Shizuka’s birthright. She wouldn’t let any other possible children her husband have take that from him.

Once, they were out in town, and she turned away for five seconds to look at something on a newstand. When she looked back, Shizuka was surrounded by other boys who were tugging at his kimono, and calling him strange for wearing girl’s clothing and looking like a girl. They claimed that he wanted to become a girl, that he had become one.

Shizuka had merely brushed their hands off, and calmly said, “My grandfather says that this will make me stronger.” His absolute faith in Haruka touched Ayame who had started to doubt the other man after two years of crossdressing and little change.

The boys tried to argue more, but Ayame stepped in, and they ran away.

Shizuka had reached up and taken her hand, and she had squeezed it. Her son was her son in the end, she figured.

* * *

His first day of school went something like this.

His classmates couldn’t figure out what to make of him. He hadn’t been there the previous year, and was now suddenly in their midst. He hadn’t been seen at the local park before, and no one had a frame of reference for the appearance of the pale boy with short hair who lived in a temple. Shizuka did not care what they made of him as long as they left him alone.

But of course they didn’t.

So thus, on the first day, he had to deal with a lot of unnecessary questions about himself and where he was from. When people found out he was from their own city and had always lived there, they didn’t know what to make of that.

“Then how come I haven’t seen you around before?” one boy asked.

But Shizuka didn’t owe him an explanation, so he shrugged, and went back to looking over the assignment for the day written up on the board. His classmates struggled to get his attention, but Shizuka was determined to not give it to them. He didn’t owe that to them despite what they thought. And they thought a lot, and they said a lot when they thought he wasn’t listening. But he was always listening, he couldn’t help but listen even when he didn’t want to.

He gained a reputation as being standoffish and cold, and he was okay with that. They didn’t need to know that up until a few months prior he hadn’t been able to run without losing his breath. They didn’t need to know that he had had a weak body since birth which had only recently gained strength. They didn’t need to know about his mother’s tears over him. That was private information. Doumeki family information. And outsiders didn’t need to know.

His grandfather had explained traditions to him, and that’s why he knew that the crossdressing he had done had worked. He was healed, and he was thankful for it. Even as much as he put on weight and lost his boyish thinness, he was thankful.

Elementary passed quietly and quickly.

The temple which was once busy and constantly filled with worshippers, emptied out as time went by. Parts of it fell into disuse, and even though they tried to keep it clean, it was easy to be lax on some parts of it. He helped his mother as best he could, but soon enough she was urging him to join school clubs. So he did. He joined a few clubs, and gained with that a few shallow friends. He wasn’t close to them, and they weren’t close to him.

Middle school came, and with it crushes. Not his on anyone, but his classmates and their developing interest in the other sex. Boys would gather around his neighbor’s desk and talk about the girls who were developing figures in vulgar ways.

When his classmates would turn to him, and ask him which girl he liked. He was always confused by how they seemed to discuss the girls, and then talked about liking them. All they seemed focused on was who had the better figure. He didn’t care about any of that.

“So what do you like boys or something?” one of his classmates, a childhood friend from elementary school, asked one day when they were walking home.

“No,” Shizuka had said, “I don’t think I do.”

“Well,” the boy said, “Just so you know, a _lot_ of people have crushes on you thanks to how good at archery you are. Girls and boys.”

Shizuka frowned slightly, “Thanks for letting me know.”

When he told his grandfather what had happened later that night, the old man continued rolling his cigarette. Shizuka waited patiently, fingers tangled on his lap as smoke billowed up into the late afternoon sky. They were on the porch overlooking the pond. When Shizuka reached the part about his friend, Haruka laughed slightly at a joke only he knew about.

“So, you haven’t developed any crushes on anyone yet, Shizuka? Does this worry you?”

“I’m not worried about it,” Shizuka said. “But, Grandfather, what is love?”

“Love?” Haruka started rolling another cigarette before his current one was half spent, “What is love?”

“Yes.”

“Love, romantic love, isn’t what those boys in your class are experiencing, more likely than not. They’re experiencing lust. Lust is different from love. Make sure you remember that. It can be part of love, but not necessarily.”

“I’ll remember it, Grandfather.”

“Love is what I want for you to experience in the future, Shizuka. It’ll be like nothing you’ve ever experienced before. I want you to have a passionate love instead of a dispassionate one. Never settle for less. My sincerest wish is that you find the person you’re meant to be with, and stay with them for the rest of your life.”

“So, you believe there’s someone we’re all meant to be with?”

“Wholeheartedly,” Haruka said, “Your grandmother was my soulmate, and I just know you’ll find yours. I can’t help but think though, that they won’t be a woman.”

“Why do you say that?” Shizuka was slightly taken back, but it didn’t show on his face. His friends constantly complained about his never changing facial expressions.

“Let’s just say I have my feelings on the matter,” the older man patted his stomach, and then lit up his second (or fifty cigarette) of the day.

“Dinner is ready,” his mother said from behind them. When he looked back, she looked angry, but she smoothed her expression out. “Shizuka, why don’t you change out of your uniform?”

“Alright,” he said, and stood up. As he left, something made him hesitant, and he was able to overhear a conversation between his mother and grandfather that would stick with him for years.

“Why would you say that Shizuka would end up with another man, Father?” she demanded. “My son is not a homosexual, no matter how he used to dress.”

“I didn’t say that had anything to do with anything,” Haruka said, “It’s just a feeling I have, is all. A dream you could say.”

“Well,” his mother said, “Dream him up a nice woman to settle down with. You know he accepts everything you say without question, Father, it’s not nice for you to go planting ideas in his head like this.”

“I’m not planting any ideas in Shizuka’s head. It’s not my fault you want him to stay ignorant of how the world works.”

“The age of magic is long over, Father.” There was a rustling, and Shizuka stopped eavesdropping, and hurried to his room. It was a simple affair not at all indicative of the boy who lived within its four walls. It had a desk as rooms of teenagers often did, and it had his schoolbag in a corner. It was kept well cleaned by his mother and his own efforts. In the future he would start demanding to keep his room cleaned by himself. But that was in the future. Now, he was alright with his mother invading his privacy.

He wasn’t okay with the seemingly frequent arguments his grandfather and mother seemed to be having revolving around him. His grandfather was part of a world that his mother disapproved of. He often went out on assignments and didn’t come back for days. And when he did, he was sometimes injured, or had something new for their storehouse.

“Some things,” Haruka would say as Shizuka watched him write out sealing symbols on a paper and place it over a box, “aren’t supposed to come into contact with humans. But they do, and it’s our job to keep them out of the hands of normal folk.”

“What is that?” Shizuka asked.

“Something that shouldn’t have been made, but was. Humans are so weak, Shizuka. We pray to gods beyond us, and wish for things we shouldn’t. But we do this because what else can the hopeful amongst us do? Otherwise they’d lose all hope, and there’s nothing worse than a hopeless human.” His grandfather would leave it at that, and would pat Shizuka on his shoulder and tell him to wash up for dinner.

There was something in his future that his grandfather could see. Something that he tried desperately to protect him from. But Shizuka didn’t know what. His grandfather had approved when he took up archery, and told him to keep at it. He had touched the bows, and told him that it was something that could only keep him safe.

“Safe? Safe from what?”

But Haruka would not say.

One day, he found a letter in his shoebox. He had only heard of it before, but never experienced it before. The handwriting was neat, and the tone of the letter formal. The person requested that he meet them out back of the school after practice was over for the day.

 _I will be waiting,_ the letter ended.

Shizuka wanted to ignore the letter, but he found he was unable to. He ended up leaving practice, and turning left instead of right for the school gates. He went around back, and there she was.

She was smaller than him in all possible ways. She had long black hair, and wore glasses that she kept messing with. She introduced herself, and then said with a bell like voice:

“I like you. Would you please consider me as a partner?”

But, he did not know her, let alone liked her. She was in a neighboring class, and often, she said, saw him in the hallways. He had once helped her pick up her books after she’d dropped them. She painted a pretty picture, and it was a convincing argument for why he should at least give her a chance. But he felt nothing for her. She was just another girl.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and almost truly was, “But no.”

“Is there someone else?”

And Shizuka felt that illusory figure of who was supposed to be the person just for him, his soulmate, his true love, off in the distance. Would it be disloyal of him to date someone else just for the sake of it?

But, he did not know that person, or even that they truly existed, so he settled on saying, “I have no interest in you, I’m sorry.”

Word got around, because the girl was seen crying in class one day, and her friends pressed her on it. One of his friends said, “What else can they expect from Doumeki of all people?”

And he wondered at that. He knew he had a reputation, and it didn’t _bother_ him, but. . . yet still, it was something to question. He knew why he had turned her down, but he didn’t see why he had to explain that to anyone.

He told his grandfather as much, and the old man turned from whatever he was doing and looked at Shizuka with interest, like he was a stranger he’d never met before.

“So it starts,” Haruka said. “Good luck. It’s only going to be worse from here out. You’re a very attractive boy after all, and girls and guys will notice that. Especially if you keep rejecting them all.”

“So, what, should I date someone then?”

“No,” Haruka said, “Don’t settle for dating someone you care nothing for.”

“Alright,” Shizuka said, and he felt justified when he turned down another girl. He tried to be gentle about it, but she insisted on hearing the truth.

“I have no interest in you,” he said flatly.

“So,” she said, and she wiped at her brown eyes, “you really are _that_ way.”

“I’m not any way,” he said, but she wasn’t listening.

No one was listening, and rumors started spreading worse than before.

That was when he got his first summons by a guy. The boy asked him to meet him at the riverside, and when Shizuka actually showed up, he blushed, and told him he thought that he wouldn’t.

And then, after, when Shizuka had rejected him, he asked why he had bothered coming out in the first place.

Shizuka thought that over, and then settled on saying, “Because you called for me.”

One day, his grandfather died in a far away place. His body came back, and Shizuka sat up with him all night long. He asked him many questions, and got no answers.

“Everything turned out as you said it would in the end. How did you know all of this, Grandfather?” Shizuka asked.

Nothing. He rolled up a cigarette for his grandfather, and placed it beside him.

“For a long time now, whenever you would look at me, you’d look sad. Did you see something? Did you see something bad happening to me? You’d always be looking so fearful, I can’t help but wonder what you were so scared of.”

Still nothing. There were no expectations for anything but silence.

Shizuka sighed, and sat in silence. “Did I survive it? Whatever bad was going to happen to me? Did you keep me safe from it all this time, Grandfather?”

He almost felt like crying, but nothing would come out. “Grandfather,” he muttered in that almost empty room. “You tried to introduce me to the world of myths, but I couldn’t see them. I’m not as strong as you were. I can’t take your place.”

What his grandfather had been doing all this time, the monsters he had been hunting, the things he had been protecting regular humans from, his job would pass on to no one. Shizuka’s father did not have the gift, and neither did Shizuka. There would be a hole left in the world now, unfilled by anyone with the Doumeki family name. Unless, Shizuka were to marry a woman and bear children with her. But his grandfather had said his soulmate would be a man, and men could not bear him children. The Doumeki family line would die with him or be carried out by a cousin he had. He didn’t know.

“But, that’s for the best, isn’t it? That it ends like this.”

His father returned for the funeral. He was not the spitting image of Haruka like Shizuka was. He was instead a sober man, with few virtues and many vices. Their cousin oversaw the funeral for Haruka, and then they all accepted the wishes of the mourners together. His grandfather’s body burned, and with it all of Shizuka’s hopes for ever understanding anything.

His mother and father did not love each other, Shizuka knew that. But dinner that night proved it without a doubt. His father was not wearing his wedding ring, while his mother was. His father didn’t know how their dinner proceedings usually went, and disrupted his mother when she cooked. He didn’t seem to enjoy the meal either. When nighttime came, he retired to a different room from Shizuka’s mother.

Shizuka would not wish his mother’s fate on anyone. He wanted to ask her why she did not divorce his father, and leave the temple. But, he knew that she felt tied to the place, and the reason for that was because of him. He was the heir to the temple. It was his birthright. So, his mother stayed, and put up with the disrespect because of him. Even while he heard her crying that night from all the way down the hall, he knew there was nothing he could do for her.

He tried to find out why his grandfather had died. He investigated, read texts, read over the older man’s daily journal. But there were no clues, and his mother didn’t know where he had been when he’d died. Just out in the country, and no witnesses. His body had been found by hikers who had taken him to a hospital where he had died. The hospital could not explain to Shizuka what his grandfather had been doing out in the forest.

So, he let it go. He had no other choice but to let it go. His grandfather was dead, and finding out why wouldn’t change that fact, wouldn’t reveal any secrets. He accepted that.

Spring came, as it always came, and winter ended. He entered high school, and found himself surrounded by strangers who did not know the rumors from his middle school. His classmates liked his attitude, and begged him to be their representative in the student council. He didn’t want the task, but it was all but forced upon him. He just couldn’t say no in a satisfying way.

He resented it, but went to the meeting room after school. They held a quick meet and greet, and Shizuka introduced himself around. As he did so, he noticed her. A beautiful girl with long curls, and a smile that was sheltered. When it came time for them to shake hands, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. She held out her hand, and he tried his best to lift his up to shake hers, but he couldn’t do it. Something was off about her, something moved behind her, something moved in her eyes.

“Ah,” she said, dropping her hand. “I understand. I am Kunogi Himawari,” she said, “It’s nice to meet you . . . ?”

“Doumeki,” he said, “Doumeki Shizuka.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Doumeki,” she said, and then bowed. He could do that at least, and bowed back to her. “I hope we’ll get along great this year.”

“I do as well.” He watched her walk away, and wondered at the sense of wrongness he felt. Something was off about her, and it itched at him. Things rarely sat that wrongly with him.

He couldn’t help, from that point on, to take note of Kunogi.

His father came by the temple more often than not, but never for long. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that he probably had another life somewhere, with another woman, and possible other children. Shizuka wanted to be angered by this, but he was tired of his parents drama and miscommunication, so he didn’t allow himself to be. It was just a fact of life. Both of them were unwilling to divorce, and draw attention to themselves in that way, and his father did not want to live in the temple, nor did he want it to go to their cousins. So he left his wife alone, and she left him alone, and they were content. That was what Shizuka told himself, at least. That’s what he hoped was true.

He wanted that passionate love that his grandfather had spoken of. He wanted to look at his future partner like his grandfather did at his grandmother in the few photos that were left over from the old days. But, he knew that he might never find that person, no matter how hard he looked.

So, he stopped looking.

Girls still confessed to him, the odd guy as well, those rumors having never completely died down. He was confused by this, but accepted it. He stopped showing up when the letters would request that he do so, and stopped reading them in fact. It was always the same story, but with a different face. He gained a reputation as a heartbreaker, without ever having spoken to any of the girls or guys who confessed to him.

He still practiced archery, having never given it up. Hadn’t his grandfather said that it would keep him safe? He was loath to give it up in that case. His grandfather’s words echoed on in his year, despite it being several months since he had passed on. Shizuka knew he was grieving him, even as much as he did not cry over it.

He planted a garden around the pond that his grandfather had loved to look out over, and tended it. It was their garden, he told himself. A garden for him and his grandfather. It was there to be enjoyed, and to be useful with the herbs it would produce for cooking. His mother tolerated his indulgence.

Their temple still was used to house the dead, and it still made money that way, but not much. Without his father’s additional income they might have struggled more. But with his help they stayed afloat. Tending a temple was hard work, and Shizuka worked hard with his grandfather gone. He had to.

“You--!” an angry voice called out, and a breeze swept by his cheek. He turned, startled, and saw that it was a boy he had never seen before glaring angrily at him. He realized too that the boy had just tried to kick him. An actual flying kick on the stairs. That was stupid and dangerous.

“Me?”

“The very sight of your face repulses me. I just want to hit you so badly,” the boy ran fingers through his hair, and glared at Shizuka. Shizuka had never seen him a day before in his life. “Every single time I see you--”

“Are you an idiot?” he asked, slightly in disbelief that someone he didn’t know could hate him this much. He tried to come up with reasons as the boy glared at him. Maybe the boy had had a crush on him at some point and was one of the many that Shizuka had rejected? Maybe one of his friends had been rejected by Shizuka? He didn’t know, or care. He stepped past the boy, “Don’t go attacking strangers.”

“Strangers?!” the boy shouted, “We’re next door neighbors, our classrooms are right next to each other, you complete idiot! We share a gym class?!”

Shizuka didn’t turn on the steps, but glanced back at him. His face was completely unfamiliar to Shizuka. “Sorry, but I don’t pay attention to things like that.”

“You, you assssssshole,” the boy shouted, but Shizuka was already halfway down the next flight.

Of course, he noticed him from then on. And was surprised that he hadn’t before. It was like suddenly once he’d been made aware of him, he’d popped up everywhere into his day to day life. The boy was loud, very very irritated, and loud. He was loud during gym class, insulting the other players, he was loud between classes, he was loud on the way home--which Shizuka was startled to find out that they took the same route.

His name was Watanuki, and Shizuka found himself gaining a noticeable awareness of him like he’d never gained of anyone else before in his life.

Maybe it was for this reason that he started approaching Watanuki of his own will. But it might have also had something to do with the fact that he was more often than not talking to Kunogi, who just screamed bad luck to him.

One rainy day, he was making his way home past the riverbank that he had once been confessed to at so long ago. It seemed a lifetime ago at this point. That boy, what had his name been? Shizuka couldn’t remember, but that wasn’t what caused his steps to slow until he came to a stop on top of the embankment.

It was Watanuki, the deranged fool standing in the rain with his hands to his chest. Shizuka watched him for a moment, before he noticed the umbrella, discarded, at his feet. So what was he holding so carefully to his chest like that? Whatever it was, Watanuki spoke in a clear voice to it.

“I suppose, I’ll die alone like this too.”

Shizuka watched him for a long time after that.

He didn’t know why, but those words, the quiet acceptance he could hear in them, stuck with him. He didn’t like it. He didn’t think anyone should ever feel like they should die alone.


	2. On Finding Home

“Hey, Doumeki,” Watanuki said one day, “Let us use your temple to tell ghost stories.” 

It literally came out of nowhere, and Shizuka was vaguely annoyed that he was being bothered on his lunch break for a question like this. If he didn’t hurry then the cafeteria would sell out of food. 

“Why would I do that?” 

Watanuki went into his customary pose, and probably thought he was talking to himself as he said angrily, “See? This is exactly why I didn’t want to ask this jerk, but noooo Yuuko insisted, and now I have to--”

Shizuka tuned him out as he watched Watanuki’s face. He really wanted this, didn’t he? He had declared them enemies many times even though they weren’t even in the same classroom, and frequently would yell at him. They were probably enemies, but Shizuka didn’t think of them that way. He thought of him more as an annoying fellow classmate who needed to shut up once in a while. No, they probably were enemies. 

“Okay,” he said, without knowing really why he was letting the word slip out. 

“Okay?” Watanuki asked, looking pleased with himself, and startled. It wasn’t a good look for him. 

“Yeah, on one condition.” 

“Which . . . is?” Watanuki asked. 

“I’ll tell you later.” 

“What, you idiot, no fair tell me now!”

“No.” And then he headed to the cafeteria to get lunch. 

Later, at home, his mother got all excited. She babbled on and on, until he had to shut her down. The people coming weren’t his friends. Just like the people who had used to come by for visits hadn’t been. They wanted to use him for something. Just like Watanuki did now. He didn’t know why he felt disappointed by that. 

Night arrived, and with it the three guests. He wanted to be surprised to see Kunogi but he wasn’t. The lady with Watanuki he was surprised by. There was something off about her. She was the owner of a shop that Watanuki worked for apparently. She didn’t explain what her shop was for or what they sold there. Watanuki didn’t either. 

“Now,” the lady said, “Did you prepare everything, Doumeki-kun?”

Watanuki had passed on her message earlier, after school ended, so he had had time to do everything she requested. They set up, and Yuuko, she smiled. It was a carefree thing, one she did without any thought behind it, Shizuka thought. Watanuki was a mess between trying to appease Kunogi, and questioning his boss. 

“Is it really alright for us to be doing this here?” Watanuki asked him with a tug on his yukata. Shizuka looked at the room opposite them. There was a dead body in there, but he didn’t think it was worth mentioning when Watanuki already looked so freaked out. 

“I already said it was okay.” And it would be, because it wasn’t like anything could really happen from telling ghost stories. But with all this preparation, did this lady know something he didn’t?

“Alright then, let’s begin, shall we?” Yuuko said once they had lit all of the candles and settled them in the four corners of the room. Everyone had taken their place. 

“I’ll start then!” Kunogi said. She looked excited in her kimono. She clapped her hands together, and began. It was a story of a hotel with an extra room attached. He knew what to expect, but he couldn’t help but notice how Watanuki reacted to the story. He was overly scared for such a simple story. 

“Why didn’t they just go home?” Watanuki muttered after Kunogi reached the part where the guests in the hotel heard noises on the wall next door. 

“Then we wouldn’t have our ghost story,” Shizuka said. Watanuki glared at him. 

“Shut up, I know that much at least!” 

“You two get along so well,” Kunogi said with a laugh. They really didn’t, Shizuka thought. Watanuki was loud and annoying, and Shizuka wasn’t any of those things. 

Himawari finished off her story, and Watanuki put a hand to his heart. 

“Sorry, that was a pretty boring story, wasn’t it?” she said. 

“Not at all,” Yuuko said, “You’re quite good at telling scary stories.” 

“Besides,” Shizuka couldn’t resist, “there was one person at least who felt the full effect of it.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Watanuki demanded. 

“It means what it means,” Shizuka said. 

“I was not scared! Don’t you even think for one second, one millisecond that I was!” Watanuki stated loudly. 

“Who’s next?” Yuuko asked. 

“That would be me,” Shizuka said. He thought for a moment. And then told them the following story: 

“My grandfather was on a tour of the local temples one day when he was at a railroad crossing. He spotted a woman with thinning hair, and a torn white dress. He didn’t like the aura she gave off at all. He watched her only out of the corner of his eye, and said to himself, ‘I don’t like the looks of this woman. She looks like a ghost.’

“She turned to him then, and said, ‘How do you know?’.” 

Watanuki muffled his screams with his hands over his mouth. Yuuko only had one question for him though. 

“Was your grandfather the main priest of this temple?” she asked. 

“Yes.”

“Did he see many spirits then?” 

Shizuka paused, and then said, “Yeah. I guess so. I heard many stories like that growing up.” 

Yuuko, she smiled, and it was the same smile as earlier, but with a twist to it, “That same blood flows in you then.” 

“What do you mean?” Watanuki asked. 

There was a sudden noise, a movement. He looked over at the room next to them where the dead was resting. 

“What was that?” Watanuki asked. “Is someone in there?”

“If you put it that way yes.” 

“Who? A family member?”

“No. A worshipper at this temple,” Shizuka explained, “or rather, his remains.”

Watanuki fell silent for a moment, “What?”

“We took him in before the funeral.” 

“So is a mourner in there with him?” 

The noises were still coming from the room as Shizuka narrowed his eyes. What was happening? Corpses didn’t move, at least not in his experience. Especially ones that had already been prepared for burial. 

“No, there’s not supposed to be anyone coming tonight.”

“Then, is a window opened?”

“That room doesn’t have any windows.” He said, and he was starting to stand up as Watanuki stood up quickly. 

“Let’s get out of here, Himawari-chan, this is--”

“You can’t,” Yuuko said, “No one is allowed beyond the wards while the ceremony is happening.”

“What?” Watanuki asked, but Shizuka understood suddenly as he looked around the room. 

“The four candles,” Yuuko explained, “are acting as wards. While you are inside them you are safe. I cannot speak for the world beyond them, however.” 

“That means--”

“While the ceremony is happening, no one is allowed to leave until all the stories have been told.” 

Shizuka studied this woman, paying her much more attention than he had before. Who was she? What game was she playing here? This was no longer the evening he had thought it would be. 

Watanuki yelled, and Shizuka told him to be quiet. 

Kunogi asked the important question as she took her hands away from the sliding doors. “Then, we actually have to tell 100 Ghost Stories?” 

“No,” Yuuko looked thoughtful, “as this is not a formal ceremony, we don’t need to do that. Just four rounds should be enough.” 

“So,” Shizuka asked to be clear, “Four stories each?”

“Yes,” Yuuko said, “Four is the number that communicates best with the otherworld as it were.” 

“I’ve never heard that before,” Kunogi said. 

Watanuki screamed in the background as they talked. 

“It’s why they don’t put fours on the rooms in hospitals after all,” Yuuko said. 

“I’ve never noticed that!” Kunogi said, “But they really don’t, do they?”

“A long time ago,” Shizuka said, “crossroads that went in four directions were called “four worlds,” “shikai”. But if you change the character “four” to “death,” “shiaki” can take you to the world of the dead. That’s what they believed back then.” 

“Doumeki,” Yuuko said with a grin, eyes closed. “You’re an expert!” 

“I learned a lot from my Grandfather,” he said as he watched her. She kept grinning.

“STOP TALKING SO CALMLY,” Watanuki demanded. He fell down next to Yuuko and they had a quiet conversation that he couldn’t overhear because Kunogi asked him more questions. 

He answered her, and she smiled at him. They had a working relationship in the sense that they were both committee members, and were both people who hung out sometimes with Watanuki. Kunogi did it on purpose it seemed like, while Shizuka more so happened upon Watanuki or overheard the other boy complaining about him loudly and had to step in. 

“Himawari-chan,” Yuuko said, “are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Kunogi said, “we have to keep playing right? If we start it, we have to finish, after all.” 

“Yes,” Yuuko said, “you’re such a good child, Himawari-chan,” she lifted the girl’s chin up, and smirked down at her, as Watanuki flipped out. 

“Well then,” Yuuko said, “Shall we resume our stories?” Smoke from the incense filled the room as she spoke. 

It was Watanuki’s turn. 

He told a story about a time when he was in grade school. In it, he had met someone new while in the nurse’s office. They chatted for a while, and then the boy left. After he left, Watanuki realized that where the boy had been standing was impossible. He couldn’t have talked to him from outside of the window, as he was on the third floor. 

“That’s all there was to it,” Watanuki said. 

“Oh wow,” Kunogi said, “is that how you became one of the seven wonders of your school?” 

Watanuki looked on the verge of tears when she said that. 

“Himaaaawaaaaariiiii--” he started. 

“I wonder what that boy was,” she said. 

“It was a ghost,” Shizuka said. 

“You, you can see ghosts, Doumeki?” Watanuki looked excited as he pointed at him. Shizuka looked at his pointing finger, and shook his head. 

“No. I can’t.”

Yuuko said calmly, hands in her lap, “Even if one can’t see them, doesn’t mean one can’t deal with them.” 

“Huh?” Watanuki asked. 

“No, it’s the end of the round. That means it’s my turn,” Yuuko grinned, and tilted her head back slightly. “Now, the thing that is showing on the shogi paper door behind me, what do you think it is?” 

Shizuka could see the figure of a woman behind Yuuko. Then there was an increase in the noise around them. 

“I wonder where that is coming from?” Yuuko asked. 

“The roof,” he answered her with a frown. “There’s the sound of four things now.”

Watanuki was flipping out, and Kunogi was looking frightened as well. He folded his arms and looked around them, trying to pinpoint a source. He wondered what they would do as the room started shaking around them. 

“Is it an earthquake?” Watanuki demanded. 

“No,” Yuuko said, pointing at a bowl of water, “Not at all.”

Watanuki looked at it and announced, “Even with the room shaking this badly it’s not moving at all!”

“But,” Yuuko said with a side look at the candles, “the wards are in danger.”

Himawari fell against him with another quake in the room. It was the first time they had ever touched. Shizuka felt uneasy, as she looked over his shoulder and cried out. 

“Watanuki-kun! Behind you!”

On the shogi doors were thousands of arms. Watanuki screamed. 

“And the wards are snuffed out,” Yuuko said as the candles went out one by one, casting the room into semi-darkness. The arms reached through the door and grabbed Watanuki. At that moment, Shizuka realized that he had to do something, but he didn’t know what. He released Kunogi and stood up. 

“Doumeki-kun, you’re in archery, right?” Yuuko said. 

“Yeah?” 

“Take the bow from the display case, and shoot it.” 

He grabbed it, and looked at her, “I don’t have any arrows.”

“For you, that will be just fine,” she said. “Aim for the doors.” 

So, he stood up and took his stance. And shot at the doors. 

Something came into the room and released Watanuki. A black thing jumped out and swallowed it. He wondered irrationally if his mother had heard anything as the black thing thanked him for the meal. Watanuki was hysterical, but he often was. 

Yuuko explained it like this as they ate watermelon that his mother had left to cool.

He had his grandfather’s blood running through his veins. While he was unable to see the spirits, he still had more than enough power to exorcise them. He was Watanuki’s opposite. Watanuki could see them, but couldn’t do a thing to destroy them. 

This explained a few odd times when he’d see Watanuki around town screaming and crying in fear at something only he could see. 

His grandfather could probably have seen the spirits unlike him. His grandfather had made a living destroying them, Shizuka figured. That was the Doumeki way that his father had rejected, and he had been so close to rejecting. He had wanted to be a doctor after all. He was good at science and the like. But now, he wasn’t so sure. If he had this power, he should be doing something about it, right?

He started spending more time with Watanuki after that. Nothing changed between them, but he changed his feelings towards him. He was still annoying, but he had a reason to be annoying unlike other annoying people. It helped that he was a good cook too, and that when they hung out he was almost always going to be getting something to eat. He was coming to understand Watanuki. 

Right now, they were at a park on a weekend. Normally he would be at home studying. He couldn’t help but think that his life had changed an awful lot in the few short weeks he’d known Watanuki. 

As they played baseball, and waited on Kunogi, the jewel on the black thing--Mokona--lit up. A screen projected out, and a brunette boy talked to Yuuko. 

“What the heck is that?” he asked. 

“Travelers, from another world. Customers of Yuuko’s,” Watanuki explained. “They must want something.” 

Yuuko, it turned out, owned a shop. A shop that dealt in wishes she had explained. They had to meet outside of it because--

“You cannot enter my shop as you are,” she had said. And he didn’t want to anyway. He didn’t have any wishes that he couldn’t accomplish with his own two hands after all. Kunogi could also not enter into the shop. Only Watanuki could. He wondered what Watanuki had wished for that left him indebted to a witch. 

“You don’t believe me, but that’s fine--”

“No.” 

“No?”

“I believe you. I never said I didn’t. I can’t see them but you say there are all these invisible spirits hanging around you. It’d be hard not to believe you with the pathetic way you carry on about them.” 

Watanuki gripped his shirt collar and shook him. “You are such a pain!” His soda threatened to spill out of his can. 

Before he could say anything, Yuuko spoke up again to her customers, and completed a transaction. 

Kunogi showed up soon after that, and they settled in to eat. She told them about a game called Angel-san, and told them she was worried about her friends at another school. 

“Could you help me, Yuuko-san?” Kunogi asked. 

Yuuko agreed, and then announced that he and Watanuki would be carrying out her request. 

The Angel-san experience, as he privately would refer to it later, taught him a lot about Watanuki. He attracted ghosts easily to him, and almost died by falling off of the roof. Shizuka broke his arm getting him back up in time, and Watanuki thanked him by yelling at him. 

He was so tired. 

His mother was growing concerned about him, and he couldn’t think of a way to explain what was happening, the world he had been caught up in, without worrying her more. It just was what it was. 

“Are you really alright to go back to practicing archery again so soon?” Watanuki asked at lunch. 

He wasn’t, but he couldn’t just not practice. Not when exorcism was all that he was good for. He needed to keep up with his skills. But he didn’t tell Watanuki. 

“Yeah. But make me lunch,” he said. 

“Whatttt?” Watanuki asked. 

“Lunch. Everyday.” he finished off his portion, and started on some of Watanuki’s. The boy didn’t even notice. And he didn’t even truly notice that he kept up the habit of making lunch for Shizuka past his arm healing. Shizuka didn’t say anything. 

He found himself tangling his life together with Watanuki’s and found himself worrying about the boy when they weren’t together. When they were together other worldly creatures typically left Watanuki alone. And it didn’t help that his job was so incredibly dangerous, either. The witch he worked for didn’t seem to mind putting him in dangerous situations at all. And the customers Watanuki would tell them about worried him as well. More often than not they ended up injured or worse. Since Watanuki was one of Yuuko’s customers, would that be his fate as well too? 

Valentine's Day came around, and with it chocolate. Once more he found himself having to turn down girl after girl. And once more he knew that rumors would soon start circulating if they weren’t already. Due to how much time he spent with Watanuki and Kunogi, people thought he was dating her. They couldn’t be further from the truth. He had a curiosity about Kunogi, but that was it. They didn’t spend much time alone together, and he was okay with that. He couldn’t get over his bad feeling about her. 

Watanuki had ranted one day that Yuuko had said that Kunogi was not his goddess of luck. Shizuka agreed. But he didn’t say that to him. 

Watanuki dropped by the student council room to give Kunogi chocolate, but she was out with a flu so Shizuka accepted it in her place. As expected of something Watanuki made, it was delicious. 

He was walking home with Watanuki that night when a girl attacked him, and stole, he would find out later, his “soul”. When he came back around, it was nighttime, and Watanuki had been crying. He apologized, and Shizuka accepted the apology. 

His mother wanted to know what he was doing some nights late at night, and worried at him. He didn’t know what to say to her. So he said nothing, and just told her that he didn’t need lunch made for his competitions anymore. 

“A friend is making them now,” he said and left it at that. She assumed he meant a girlfriend, and pressured him about it, but he didn’t bother to correct her, and ignored her when she did. 

And then, that day came. 

It started off the same as any mission Yuuko sent them on. They weren’t told the full story, and were given half baked instructions. 

“Investigate,” and so they did. 

Watanuki crotched down underneath the blooming flowers of the hydrangea and then disappeared from view. Shizuka couldn’t believe it. He called out for him, looked all around the bush, and then he started digging. 

He didn’t know how long he dug for until the rain stopped hitting his back, and he heard an uncomfortably familiar voice say, “That won’t work.” 

He looked up at Yuuko. “Then how do I get Watanuki to return here?”

“Do you still have that ribbon from before?” 

He did, and showed it to her. “Good. Now if he still has his, you can bring him back that way,” Yuuko explained, “are you willing to stay here until he does?” 

And Shizuka was. He wanted to, for Watanuki’s sake. For the sake of that boy he had seen standing at the riverside talking about how he would die alone. So he stood there, holding the ribbon. It gave him a lot of time to think as Yuuko was silent, and merely waited with her umbrella. She didn’t offer it to him. But he was okay with that, in the end. 

This was his choice, and it was his own fault for not having an umbrella. He didn’t move. He looked at the hole he had dug up, and felt his split nails, and dirt covered clothes soaking his body. He was alive, and he wanted to stay alive. But, he wanted to live in a world, he was realizing, where he kept on getting homemade lunches. He liked that world. He liked it a lot. It was a selfish desire, but he had never claimed to be a selfless man. He wanted to live in a world that had Watanuki in it. 

One that had the weird events, one that had the unexplainable. The world his grandfather had inhabited. He wanted to carry on what his grandfather had been doing. That was his sincerest wish. 

His thoughts fell silent, and Yuuko was silent. And there was only the sound of rain against his skin, and he couldn’t help but think he would get sick from this. And that would be just his luck. He would fall ill and die, and that would be just his luck. 

There was a tug on the ribbon, and when he looked over, it had grown and now connected him to Watanuki who was on the ground, holding onto something. He didn’t know what to make of that. Just tugged on the ribbon to draw his attention. 

“I’m tired,” he said as he sank down to his knees. He had done it though. Watanuki had returned. The early morning was cool, and his clothes were damp. 

Yuuko came over, and explained to Watanuki that he had been gone for ten full hours. And that Shizuka had stood there all that time waiting for him. 

They headed back to his house, and he let Watanuki borrow some clothes. He changed as well and fetched something from the storehouse for Yuuko to have. He had to pay her after all for telling him about the ribbon. 

“This will do nicely,” she said, “Payment received.” 

Watanuki attracted otherworldly things to him in a way that only proved to be bad for him. One day, he showed up talking about a woman he had met. She sounded like she wanted to adopt him from the sounds of it. But, a week passed, and he couldn’t help but notice that Watanuki was growing weaker, and weaker. Another week more, and more passed, and Shizuka started to fear for Watanuki’s life. 

So, he made a choice. A hard choice, but a choice. He took his bow, and he followed Watanuki one afternoon. He would not let his . . . friend disappear on him. Because they were friends at this point, weren’t they? Watanuki, him, and even Kunogi, they had somehow or other become friends. And friends protected each other. Friends were there for each other. Friends cared. And Shizuka was almost scared to admit, he cared a lot for Watanuki. 

He cared so much that he decided that whatever happened, even if Watanuki never spoke to him again, he had to pull that bow, and shoot whatever was possessing Watanuki and draining him of his life force. 

“Why?” Watanuki asked, tears in his eyes, “why did you?” 

“I did what I had to do,” Shizuka said. 

He didn’t expect to hear anything from Watanuki after he took him to Yuuko’s gate. 

But, the next day, like always, Watanuki had lunch for him. He looked at Watanuki in shock, and then accepted it. This was who they were to each other after all. He was glad that Watanuki had accepted that much at least. 

Then one day, he realized that nothing had truly changed between them. They had not reached the understanding he thought that they had. They were cleaning the temple one day, and Watanuki mentioned Yuuko’s shop. But such a place didn’t exist for him. After all, it was just an empty lot, overgrown and needing a lot of care and attention. 

As they spoke, Watanuki got himself tangled in a spider’s web. Doumeki got him out of it, and thought that was the end of that. 

He went about his day with an steadily aching eye, and realized that that it hadn’t been the end of anything when he collapsed after school. 

“Let’s get you to a hospital,” Watanuki said. But this wasn’t the sort of problem a hospital could fix. He showed him, his eye completely covered by a spider’s web, and then Watanuki’s next suggestion was that woman’s shop. But he couldn’t enter that shop. He had no wishes that that woman could grant for him. 

“You’re such an idiot,” Watanuki yelled at his back as he made his way home to his temple. 

He avoided his mother, and managed to do that for the rest of the night, taking dinner in his room. He was settling in to do homework when there was a gust of wind that swept through his room and opened up his doors, and removed the spiderweb. 

It was gone, but it left him with an uneasy feeling in his stomach. 

The next day, he waited for Watanuki to pass by the temple on his way to school as he usually did. 

“Hey.”

“My name isn’t ‘hey’,” Watanuki said, “Jesus, learn my name already. It’s always ‘you’ or ‘hey’ with you.” 

“You are always complaining about something,” Shizuka said, and then waited for Watanuki to turn around and start yelling at him. But the other boy kept his back to Shizuka and kept on walking. “The thing on my eye is gone.” Watanuki didn’t turn around to look. 

“Oh?” he said, “good then.” He walked faster. 

“Hey, you, wait up--”

“Didn’t I already just say my name isn’t either of those things?” Watanuki wouldn’t look at him, and that bugged Shizuka, so he reached out and grabbed his arm to make him turn around. 

Across Watanuki’s eye was a bandage. 

“What is that?”

“I hurt myself yesterday at Yuuko’s place. It’ll heal.”

But Shizuka didn’t believe him. It was in the same exact place where his injury had been.

“What did you do?” he asked. 

Watanuki yanked himself free, “. . .what are you _talking_ about?”

He grabbed Watanuki’s jacket, and leaned in, “I’m asking what did you do to get rid of the spider web on my eye.” 

“Nothing, I already told you I--”

He pressed Watanuki against the wall, and tugged at the bandage. It ripped free, and Watanuki’s glasses fell off. His eye was blank. Cloudy and gone. 

He had made a deal with the devil for his sake. Shizuka was angrier than he could ever remember being. 

“You. . .” 

Watanuki was silent, and glared at him steadily.

“Call her.” 

“What?”

“I can’t enter into that shop, so call her now.”

“I need to get to school,” Watanuki said, “I don’t have time to be indulging you like that.” 

He slapped his palm next to Watanuki’s head, “Get her.” 

Watanuki pulled out his phone and called Yuuko, all the while he glared at Shizuka. When Watanuki was done, he told him to wait at the park for her. 

“Unlike you,” Watanuki said, “I care about my grades.” 

He left, putting the bandage back on and picking up his bag and glasses. 

“Well,” Yuuko said when she finally showed up at the park, “I wasn’t expecting to see you out here this early. The price for your wish will be high naturally.” 

“I’m willing to pay whatever I have to pay,” he said, and he meant it. The eye loss had been his to bear. Watanuki had no right to have taken that upon himself.

“How do I get his eyesight back?” 

“I can’t tell you that,” she said, “Watanuki made a wish, and yours would conflict with it.”

“What did he wish for?”

“I told him what he needed to do in order to make the spider angrier at him than you, and he did it.” 

“Did you know that he would lose his sight?”

“Of course.”

“Then why?”

“Because that is why my shop exists. I exist to grant wishes, no matter what.”

“Then why can’t you grant my wish?”

“Because in order to fulfill it, I would have to void his wish. And in my line of work, the first asker’s wish always takes priority.” 

Shizuka sighed. 

“You’re angry,” she said, and took a seat, crossing her legs. 

“Not at you,” he started to say. 

“If you want, you can be angry. When someone makes a choice that hurts others, that person has to deal with the consequences. That is what it means to be human, and to have others care for you after all. That child does not yet understand this. So, be angry and tell him about it. Maybe then, bit by bit, you can change him.” 

Watanuki’s problem, Shizuka realized, was that he didn’t value himself. He gave up his sight because it meant nothing to him. If someone asked, he probably cut off a hand. He was a danger to himself for as long as he would be like that. So, it only made sense that Shizuka tried to make him understand that. 

He researched as he had never researched before into books on how to cure Watanuki. The other boy just told him to give it up, but Shizuka refused. Watanuki didn’t understand that Shizuka did this because he cared dearly for him. And Shizuka wanted only the best for him. Over time, he had grown to care exceedingly for Watanuki. 

He didn’t want his friend hurt and suffering on his behalf. 

Then one day, while he was in the middle of searching, Watanuki stopped by with a book from Kunogi. They talked for a bit, and he tried to hurry Watanuki out so he wouldn’t see what the books he was reading were. He didn’t want a lecture on how he shouldn’t waste his time on fixing Watanuki’s eye, when it wasn’t a waste of his time at all. He needed to do this. 

Watanuki left, and he settled into reading more books. His mother left him alone, not likely the old storehouse that he was in. She told him dinner was in the fridge via text, and went on to bed. There was no one awake or no one was supposed to be when the storeroom door slammed open and there was Watanuki for the second time that day. 

“What are you doing here?” he asked. 

“This place doesn’t look clean at all! What have you been doing all this time? Sleeping??” 

“Hurry up and say what you came here for,” Shizuka said. 

“I, the great Watanuki, have come here to give you, the lowly Doumeki, dinner. Fall down on your knees and praise me. Perform a dance in worship of me.”

Yeah, no, he wasn’t going to do any of that. He accepted the bag though, and looked inside of it. He voiced his usual complaint, and he and Watanuki argued for a bit. 

They settled down to eat, and Watanuki looked around at the charms his grandfather had written. “Your grandfather seems like he was a great man.”

“He was.”

“Unlike you,” Watanuki added. And that was supposed to hurt, but it didn’t. It was true after all. 

He wasn’t anything like his grandfather, and he was alright with that. 

They finished eating, and he made an attempt to send Watanuki home. 

But Watanuki picked up a book, and stared at its pages for a long moment. 

“Are you really looking for a way to get back my eyesight?”

He wondered who had filled him in on that, before realizing it could only be Yuuko. 

“Yeah.”

“I don’t mind it being like this,” Watanuki said. But of course he wouldn’t. 

Shizuka sighed, “Well, I do. Hey, go home, it’s late and that’s when the spirits are really active.” 

“Oi, shut up. And my name isn’t ‘Hey’, my parents gave me a wonderful name and you should really use it!”

He didn’t reply but picked up a book he hadn’t read before. Watanuki groaned. 

“This storehouse is safe, because my grandfather wouldn’t allow anything really evil in it. I can’t say the same for outside of it though. You really should go home.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Watanuki said, “I’ll do what I wanna do just like you’ll do what you want to do, stupid.”

Watanuki flailed around, and managed to knock something loose. 

“Oh no, I broke someone else’s house!” he proclaimed, as Shizuka looked inside the hole. There was a book wrapped up in cloths. He picked it up, and unwrapped it. Watanuki read over his shoulder. 

“I can’t read it.”

“It’s written in the old script. I can read it,” Shizuka said. He flipped through the pages as he took a seat. Watanuki stood up behind him. And there it was, halfway through the book. “It’s here.”

“What is?”

“How to lift a curse on a eye from a spider.” He started to read the instructions outloud when suddenly there was a hissing noise, and Watanuki pulled him back. There was a black wormlike thing eating the words on the page. He reached out for the book, and Watanuki held him back. 

“Idiot! We don’t know what that thing is!” Watanuki shoved a box on top of it, trapping the book with how to lift his curse with it as well. 

“Stupid, it’s going to eat the entire book whatever it is!” he reached for the box, and Watanuki grabbed his hand. 

“It’ll hurt you!”

“Well,” Doumeki said, “that’s my business if it does, right?” He looked at Watanuki, daring him to say differently. Watanuki did not release his hand. 

“Ugh,” Watanuki said, “I wish Yuuko were here! She would know what to do!”

“Did someone call?” Yuuko stood in the entryway of the storeroom. 

“Yuuko!” Watanuki called out. 

“Yo,” the black thing, Mokona, said. 

Yuuko joked around for a bit with Watanuki before turning to him, “If you want to get rid of that, you’ll have to pay me with your grandfather’s charms.” 

He looked around at the charms all around the storehouse, before nodding. “Take em.” There were so many valuables in the storehouse, but that book was the most valuable of them all he was sure! 

Yuuko grinned, “Mokona!” 

The black thing swallowed up the charms, and then spat them out. Yuuko grabbed them, and then lifted the lid off the box. She charmed the thing away from the book, and let it eat his grandfather’s charms. Once it had eaten the last one it spun a cocoon around itself. 

Shizuka picked up the book, and flipped through it. All the pages were emptied out. All that information was lost. His grandfather’s hard work was gone. 

“Thank goodness,” Watanuki said. “What was that?”

“A bookworm. It eats words. It loves valuable ones, so that’s why it went right for Doumeki’s Grandfather’s charms. The protection spells are binding it now.

“Now, I wonder where a thing like this came from?” Yuuko said. Watanuki showed her a book. “Now, who does this book belong to?”

All the words were scattered around the pages, but it wasn’t completely erased like his grandfather’s book had been. 

“Himawari-chan,” Watanuki said. And then Yuuko pressed the cocoon to her lips, and looked serious for a moment. 

“I should have guessed.” 

With the book gone, there was nothing left for him to do. He caved in, and waited for the witch outside of that abandoned lot. 

“Well well, what can I do for you?” she asked. 

“Is there really nothing to be done about his eye?”

“Ah,” she said. “So you came here to this abandoned lot in order to ask me that?” 

“It looks abandoned to me, but I’ve seen you both entering it.”

“You do not need my shop, thus you cannot see it.”

“Not even if I have a wish?”

“You are such that you do not need my help to fulfill your wishes.”

“I have a wish. I want you to--”

“I don’t think you fully understand the consequences if I grant that wish,” she said. 

“Are you going to talk me out of it?” 

She smiled, and it was a secretive smile, “No. I don’t think I will. It’s not my place to not accept a wish.”

“What’s the payment?” 

She kept smiling. 

The next day Watanuki’s eye had life again. It was the twin to Shizuka’s own eye. He held out his lunch boxes to Shizuka. 

“What’s that?”

“Your lunch! That I the wonderfully talented, godlike Watanuki, made for you!”

“. . . okay? What are you trying to say?”

“It’s heavy!” Watanuki complained, “I made a lot because you eat like a beast. Like you have a hole for a stomach, be grateful and carry it to school! It’s not fair if I have to cook and carry! So--”

“We’ll share the burden,” Shizuka said, understanding dawning. He took the lunchbox. Watanuki went into a rant about how great he was, and then complained about Shizuka not thanking him yet. Shizuka shrugged. 

“I haven’t eaten it yet,” he said. 

Soon, he came to realize that he was starting to become able to see what Watanuki saw through their shared eye. It was little things. Things, he realized when Watanuki would describe the events after, that happened when Watanuki got excited, or experienced strong emotions. The connection was unstable, and Shizuka realized that he wasn’t sure what to make of it. 

And then, Tsuyuri Kohane came into their lives. 

He saw her, and knew her for the same type of person that Watanuki had been. She was obviously being abused by her mother, and Watanuki’s heart went out to her. He wanted to save her, and all Shizuka wanted to do was keep Watanuki safe. He didn’t know how often the two of them met, but each meeting left an impression on Watanuki. He told him that her mother wouldn’t even say her name. That she wouldn’t even touch her. It was hurting Watanuki, but not in the way that the spirit woman from before had. In a different but worse way. 

One day, he heard loud and clear, “WATANUKI!” and as he ran, he saw him lying in a pool of his own blood. Yuuko's voice came to him. “Come to the shop. He won’t live otherwise.”

So he found Kunogi and they went. Yuuko told them both the prices they would have to bear in order for Watanuki to live, and he agreed. Kunogi did as well. 

“Do you blame me?” Kunogi asked before he passed out. Watanuki still had not stirred. 

Did he blame her? He couldn’t make up his mind about that, about her. He considered her a friend, but at what cost? Did that mean that Watanuki would forever be impacted by the bad luck surrounding her in order for them to be a happy trio? Did he want that?

He passed out before he could answer her. 

When he woke, Yuuko told him simply that Watanuki was okay now. 

“And now, you have need of my shop. You may come anytime now,” she said. “You and Himawari-chan both.” 

“Alright,” he said. 

“As long as you are with Watanuki and Himawari, he will not be as impacted as much by her curse. You, yourself, will never be impacted by it. Such is the blessing over your life.” 

“Pretend you didn’t hear any of that,” Kunogi said when she came out of Watanuki’s room. “It’s just our little secret.” But he had heard it, and couldn’t deny that he had. It wasn’t like him, after all. 

“It’ll be our secret too,” he settled on saying. She looked at him in shock. But he meant it. They were friends after all. In a different way than she and Watanuki were friends. He wasn’t in love with her after all like Watanuki claimed to be, but he was realizing that her happiness was his happiness. They were friends. He knew now why he felt uneasy around her, and with that solved, he was able to relax at last. 

“You’ve changed,” she said. And he really didn’t think he had, but when she patted his shoulder, he let her. He couldn’t be hurt by her after all, so her touching him was alright. 

“Have I?” 

“Before you would have flinched away.”

That was certainly true. So he didn’t know what to say to that. Kunogi laughed at him. 

Watanuki returned to school, and told him that Yuuko wanted to see him. After school he went with him to the shop. Just outside the doors, Watanuki stopped walking. 

“You . . . your price was the blood in your body right?”

“To give you back the amount you lost, yeah.”

“That must have been a lot. . . thank you.”

He peered around Watanuki’s shoulder to take a look at his face. He was blushing, a bright red. As if he had never said thanks before, or rather, never expected to be thanking Shizuka of all people. 

“What are you doing?!”

“Trying to see what face you were making.”

“Ugh, go and die.”

“Welcome,” Yuuko said. 

Yuuko looked troubled as he had rarely seen her look. 

“What’s wrong? Why did you call me here today?” 

She shook her head, “This is in payment for the water jugs,” she said, and gave him an egg. 

“What’s this for?” 

“Nothing will ever hatch from that egg, unlike the bird that Watanuki gave to Himawari. I received this as payment, and it separated into two. Unlike Watanuki’s egg, this egg has no magic.” Yuuko’s words made little sense to him, but he accepted the egg regardless. 

“What will it do?”

So, she told him. 

“In the future, there will come a time when I will no longer here. And in that future, Watanuki will have to make a choice. And in that future, you will have to as well. That egg is for that important choice you’ll have to make.”

“Why do I have to make such an important choice?” Shizuka asked. 

“Because at that time, what will be left to you, I wonder?” 

They met Tsuyuri, and she called him a pretty person. She and Watanuki went to a bench to talk. He almost was fatherlike as he addressed the younger girl. He went to get them all drinks from the vending machine. On the way, he saw a spirit. He was seeing them more and more often lately, even when he wasn’t in Watanuki’s presence. This was the world his grandfather had known. And now he was being welcomed into it. 

When he came back, Tsuyuri looked up at him, and somehow, she knew. She knew that they were sharing an eye. 

“You’ve changed a lot, Watanuki-kun,” she said, “since we last met.” And then she looked at Shizuka, “You’re blending with this person.” 

He wondered at her words, and Watanuki started to ask her what she had meant, but then her mother showed up. She was an angry woman with blonde hair, and a cross expression. 

“I just went to a business meeting!” She said, “I told you to stay at home!”

“It’s my fault,” Watanuki started to say, but Tsuyuri put a finger to her lips and shushed him. 

“Who are you? What do you want from this kid? Did you give her that?! Don’t you know what that could do to her powers? What will you do if they dry up? We’re still receiving money for that!” The mother reached out to Watanuki, so Shizuka pulled him back before she could do harm to him. 

“I can see,” Tsuyuri said. Her mother froze and looked back at her with a scared expression. He had never thought a mother could look at their own kid like that. 

“I can still see clearly.” 

“Good,” the mother said, “That’s good. Let’s go home. The others are waiting on us.” While her mother’s back was to them, Tsuyuri mouthed: “See you soon,” to them and left ahead of her mother who couldn’t even bring herself to touch her own child. 

“That’s the girl? The one whose mother won’t call her by her own name?” he asked to confirm. 

“Yes,” Watanuki said, “But, for Kohane-chan, for her sake, I will make her a bento. I’ll fill it with all of her favorites. I’ll make her a cake too. We’ll drink tea together next time we meet. Next time, I’ll go.”

“Next time you go, that mother will hit you,” Shizuka said. 

“Even still, I’ll go,” Watanuki said, “You saw her lips moving right? She said ‘see you soon,’ I have to go.” 

Shizuka sighed, Watanuki really was an idiot, but he was the idiot that Shizuka had been saving and protecting all this time. He told him to add in a side dish for him that was fairly complicated. 

“What’s this? Why would I do that?”

“For me,” he said. 

“What???”

“Or don’t you have confidence in your cooking?”

“I’ll look up a recipe! But I’m not making that for you!”

“Do it,” he said. 

He met up with Watanuki, and they overheard conversations about Tsuyuri. Each smear against her was a slap in the face for Watanuki. She looked like she was having a lot of trouble. Her powers were being called into question and everything. But she had powers. Shizuka knew that for certain. 

Something had changed in him, and he could just know these things now. It had started when he’d given his eye to Watanuki, he knew. 

But now, they stood in front of Tsuyuri’s house. People had written horrible words all over it. _FAKE, PHONY,_ and the like. It took a special kind of person to do this to a child, Shizuka couldn’t help but think. 

The doorbell didn’t work, so they knocked. The person who answered was Tsuyuri. She was covered in bandages. She explained that she had fallen down some steps, and that she thought she had been pushed. Watanuki embraced her. She met Shizuka’s eyes over his shoulder, and they watched each other for a moment. 

She invited them inside. The house was covered in fancy clothes and shopping bags. The mother more likely than not. 

“Sorry that we only have two chairs,” she said as she led them to the dining room. 

“It’s okay. Is it only you and your mother living here then?” Watanuki asked. 

“Yes.”

“Have you gone to a hospital yet for those injuries?”

“No. They’re not on my back so I can see to them. I’m okay--”

And then Watanuki said something that shocked Shizuka. 

“It’s hurting me! To see you in pain is hurting me, Kohane-chan.”

“Hurting you?”

“Yes, to see someone I care about be in pain, what else can I do but hurt?”

“I see.” Tsuyuri honestly looked like she had never considered this before as she looked at Watanuki kneeling in front of her. Shizuka didn’t even know when Watanuki had changed so much. No longer was he alright with being hurt for the sake of others, or letting himself be hurt. He was talking to Tsuyuri has he had been talked to. “If you fell down some stairs and I saw you all hurt, I think I would hurt here,” she pressed a hand to her chest. “Is this because I care for you?”

“I would be happy if it meant that,” Watanuki said. They smiled at each other for a long moment, and then Watanuki stood up and started ordering him around. They ended up seated around the table, enjoying a meal together. He thanked her for pouring him some tea with a pat on her head. He and Watanuki bantered as usual, and Tsuyuri looked at them both. 

“You’re having a conversation,” she said. “Mother and I don’t do that.”

“Well,” Watanuki said, “You’re having a conversation here with me now, and that makes us friends, right, Kohane-chan?”

“Yes, Kimihiro-kun, that does,” and then she stilled, and they could hear someone in the hallway. Shizuka stood up, and Watanuki did too. 

It was Tsuyuri’s mother, and she wasn’t pleased to see them. 

“What are you feeding her?” she demanded. “Who are you two? What are you doing in my house?”

“I invited them,” Tsuyuri said. 

“Get out,” she demanded, “Can’t you see you’re ruining her? Planting ideas into her mind?”

“But,” Watanuki started to say, but trailed off. 

“Oi,” Shizuka said, “Watanuki--!” he said as the mother tossed hot tea. He grabbed Watanuki, and pulled him to the bathroom to wash his face off. He patted him dry, and sighed, “Shouldn’t scar.” 

They left that house, and he dropped Watanuki off at the store. He then went home, and ate dinner that his mother cooked for him, and thanked her. 

“What’s that for?” she asked with slight confusion. 

“For being a good mom,” Shizuka said. 

It followed that they ended up taking Tsuyuri away from her mother. It was all Watanuki’s doing, but he did it in a way that didn’t leave him injured. He wasn’t self sacrificing too much about it. 

But Watanuki was slipping away from him. Shizuka was starting to get flickers of dreams he was having. In them, Watanuki would be talking with a beautiful girl he called ‘Sakura’. In them sometimes too, Shizuka saw his grandfather when the older man had been younger and looked more like Shizuka. 

Tsuyuri went to live with an older lady of Yuuko’s acquaintance. And Shizuka was handed a paper at school to decide the course of life he wanted to take. He could stay in the science track, or switch to something else. 

It was obvious what he wanted to do. He had to learn more. He had to continue not only the family traditions, but also learn more so he could stay by Watanuki’s side. That was his wish. 

The egg, it haunted him. What would it do when that time came when Yuuko disappeared from everything? Already people were forgetting her, Watanuki told him anxiously, already signs of her were gone. The egg was for this time that was quickly approaching, Shizuka knew. But he didn’t know what it did. Yuuko disappeared, and Watanuki mourned her. But he came back, and that was what mattered most. 

Mokona told him what Yuuko had not. The egg wasn’t for Watanuki to use, but for Shizuka to use. It was really his choice to make when that time came. For that egg it could only be used once, and once used would be unuseable. He would have to choose carefully. 

Watanuki slipped away, and he was left holding onto the pieces of a life that could have been. He could see it all through their shared eye, but was helpless to do anything about it. He had done his best to stick beside him all this time. He hadn’t left him alone in fact. He spent more time in the shop or with Watanuki than he did at home. His mother had commented on it, but it had already been too late for apologies or explanations. 

He watched as Watanuki signed his life away to live in the shop forever, waiting on Yuuko. He watched as Watanuki put on her discarded robes, and stepped outside. He held the egg, and almost felt like crying. 

“I will become the owner of this shop,” Watanuki said. 

Watanuki had made his choice, and Shizuka had to make his own. 

“I can’t use this on him,” he decided. And he realized something else as he pocketed the egg, and went outside to join Watanuki. 

He was in love with Watanuki. He probably always had been in love with Watanuki for a long time and would be for a longer time yet. It wasn’t the passionate love his grandfather had described, but did it need to be? Every day with Watanuki was like coming home, he realized. 

Watanuki was smoking Yuuko’s pipe when he settled next to him. 

“I saw it all,” he said, “through this eye.”

Shizuka watched as Watanuki coughed into his hand, and then bravely picked up the pipe again. 

“So, you’ll become the owner of this shop?”

“Yes, and grant wishes to those who come.” He wasn’t wearing his glasses, and he was pale in the moonlight. After tonight, no, even tonight, he was no longer the Watanuki that Doumeki had known all this time was he? 

“Then grant my wish,” he said. 

“You have a wish? You’ll have to pay a price for it, you know,” Watanuki said, “but I’m not like Yuuko. I wouldn’t know what the right price is yet.”

“Then do it as a favor to me.”

“I. . . can’t do favors anymore either. As master of this shop, I have to get payment.” 

“Then take the payment from me later,” Shizuka said. 

Watanuki looked at him with curiosity, but agreed. 

Shizuka leaned over and kissed him. It was a simple thing, a quick brush of the lips. His world didn’t end, nor start. But Watanuki looked dazed when he pulled away. 

“What?” he asked, “what was that supposed to be.”

“A kiss,” he said simply. 

“I know what a kiss is, but why are you kissing me?” 

“Because I wished to.” Shizuka said. It was more like a kiss goodbye than anything though. This was no longer the Watanuki he had loved quietly all this time. He stood up to go. He needed time to himself to think, and to cope that he had loved and lost all before he realized it. Watanuki Kimihiro would become stuck like this, never aging, and undying for years and years. Meanwhile, Doumeki Shizuka would age, and eventually die. Their times were no longer aligned. Their hearts weren’t reaching each other anymore. 

Before he could leave, there was a tug on the bottom of his shirt, and he turned to see Watanuki there. Yuuko’s kimono had fallen off his back, and was pooling around his legs. 

“Wait,” Watanuki said, “you can’t just say that and leave.” 

“What else is there to say?” Shizuka asked. 

“Anything,” Watanuki said, “but don’t just leave like that.” 

_I have an egg,_ Shizuka thought, _in my pocket that can make you forget her, that would make you regret this choice._

He did not say that. “I love you,” he said instead with his eyes as he knelt down, and touched Watanuki’s shoulders, and kissed him again. He had no words to offer him. 

Watanuki had no words either, it seemed as he kissed him back. It was the second kiss of his life, and it was awkward. They tried again, and this time was less awkward. But, there were other people in the shop, and Watanuki seemed to become aware of that as they kissed. 

Watanuki stood up, and grabbed Yuuko’s kimono. “Let’s go to my room.” 

They didn’t pass Mokona or the girls on their way to Watanuki’s room. Watanuki held his hand, as if afraid that this wasn’t real. Shizuka gripped his hand tight to prove to him that he wouldn’t leave him alone, not tonight. In just a few short kisses, Watanuki had changed his mind. Maybe they could make something work. Maybe they could be happy. As long as he had Watanuki, did any of that stuff matter really?

He undid the buttons on Watanuki’s shirt, and Watanuki undid his with shaking hands. They were both nervous, it was both of their first time. And this would probably be the only time Watanuki ever did something like this as a human. Already he must be changing, right? Becoming something that wouldn’t age, something that wouldn’t change, something terrible. 

It was a sobering thought, and so Shizuka didn’t protest as Watanuki kept wearing Yuuko’s kimono. Even as he got off his pants, and boxers, even as Shizuka stripped himself bare, that kimono stayed on. 

It taunted Shizuka with Yuuko’s memory as he pressed Watanuki against his futon. But, he cast the image out of his mind, and focused only on Watanuki. He would be this way for a long time. Forever 17. 

Watanuki’s skin was flushed pink, and his cock was heavy in Shizuka’s hand. His looks weren’t those of a teenager anymore, but weren’t quite those of an adult either. What would Watanuki have looked like at 20, 30, 40, 50, Shizuka couldn’t help but wonder. But he would never know. Watanuki had given up his humanity. 

He might have been angry as he kissed him. But Watanuki accepted his roughness with a quiet dignified gentleness at first, and then with his own answering grief for what he was losing. But, Shizuka had yet to hear Watanuki express any regret over his choice. 

They had no lube, and no time it seemed, so they made do with wrapping hands around each other, and jerking off like that. They kissed throughout. Shizuka wanted to imprint this memory of this night into his mind. So he did. He memorized this foolish selfish boy he loved, and held him close to his heart. He wouldn’t give this up for anything. 

He would return to school the next day, and no one knew Watanuki saved Kunogi. He told her about his wish, and told her to visit him at the shop to learn the full details. She looked heartbroken. 

“But how could he be so selfish?” she asked, “Didn’t he think at all about what he was giving up?” 

All Shizuka could do was shake his head. He didn’t know what had been going on in Watanuki’s head. All he knew was the end results, which were: one Watanuki Kimihiro, no longer part of this world. 

“He made us lunch,” he said instead. There would probably be a price now to pay for that too. He wondered if they had damaged the kimono last night by having sex on top of it. He wondered a lot of things, actually. 

He went back to the shop with Kunogi. 

“The master is sleeping,” one of the girls said. 

“Sleeping,” the other said. 

“Wake him up,” Shizuka said, “He’ll want to see her.” 

The girls traded a look, and then laughed, “Yes!” 

They ran off, and he and Kunogi took themselves to the sitting room. Watanuki showed up in one of Yuuko’s kimonos, and with a hickey on his neck. 

“Himawari-chan, I wasn’t expecting to see you today.” 

“Doumeki-kun told me everything,” she said. “But I had to hear it from you.”

“Well, knowing this idiot he probably didn’t do a good job of explaining,” Watanuki said, “But, Yuuko--do you remember her?”

“Yes,” Kunogi said. 

“Yuuko, she passed on from this world. And now I’m going to wait in this shop until I can see her again. I won’t age anymore. My time has been stopped.” 

“But what about us?” Kunogi asked.

“I can still see you two! You can come to the shop anytime, its doors won’t ever be closed to you.” 

He and Kunogi shared a look. 

“That’s not what I mean,” Kunogi said, “We’re going to age and die, Watanuki-kun. You’re going to be all alone.”

Watanuki considered that, “That won’t be for years and years. Let’s not worry about that right now. Since you’re here should I make dinner for you?” 

So, they fell into the habit of going to the shop after school. And then Watanuki got his first customer. It was a woman with a stalker. She wished for him to be gone, and Watanuki told her to go to the police. But what she really wished for was his death as the police hadn’t yet helped her out. Watanuki told the woman not to do anything rash, and he gave her a baseball bat. 

“For her protection,” he told Shizuka over dinner as he explained the wish. He had bandages wrapped around his arms and shoulder. 

“And what happened to you?” he asked. 

“I guess I didn’t take the right price from her,” he said. “Don’t worry about it.”

But he couldn’t help but worry. This was the man he loved after all. 

Watanuki changed. He grew lazier, and only woke up to grant wishes or cook for Shizuka. Tsuyuri told him not to worry himself about it. 

“Kimihiro is still grieving for Yuuko-san,” she said, “Allow him time.”

He and Tsuyuri started spending a lot of time together as they ran errands for Watanuki. Since he couldn’t leave the shop anymore, he would often call Shizuka or have Mokona text him to do this or that for him. 

When he would show up the girls would greet him as though he was a customer, and Watanuki would correct them. 

“It’s just Doumeki,” he’d say. “Welcome home,” he didn’t say. 

But even still this wasn’t his home so much as it was a place for him to rest his head occasionally. 

As for Kunogi, she and Watanuki figured out that it was dangerous for her to be in the shop too often. So they settled on a once a year visit, and she took herself off to a school far, far away. She texted Shizuka often, and they stayed in touch that way. She called Watanuki often as well, and they stayed in touch that way. Their trio had been broken up by their own hands, but they had no choice with the wish that Watanuki had made


	3. In the End

Years passed, and he got into college. He went for a history degree with a concentration in mythology studies. His main professor, his advisor, liked him. He admired the man, and wanted to do what he did. Teach and instruct. But more than that, he wanted to keep being of use to Watanuki. 

They had settled into their own routine. Shizuka would come by, and be welcomed by the girls. 

“Welcome home,” they would say, and he would remind them that he had his own home and his own bed. And then Watanuki would ruin it by saying that he basically lived there, so wasn’t it his own too?

“You can have more than one home,” Watanuki would say, before taking the groceries from him. 

He wanted to tell him that it was possible to have many houses and places one slept at, but only one home. His home though, wasn’t it with Watanuki? Hadn’t it always been? 

So he didn’t argue about that, just handed over the bags, and headed to talk to Mokona while Watanuki cooked. 

“He hasn’t been getting as injured lately,” Mokona said to him before he could ask about the appearance of the bandage around Watanuki’s left wrist. “Just sometimes he doesn’t know the exact right price. It’s to be expected though. Yuuko wasn’t preparing him to take over, not really.”

“But did she know that he would?” 

“Maybe, she did have a way of knowing a lot,” Mokona said, “But she just told me to look after him, so I will. And you will too, won’t you, Doumeki?” 

“For as long as I can,” he said. 

“What are you two talking about?” Watanuki asked, coming back out with liquor. He settled down on the porch, and poured them all a glass. Shizuka studied him, carefully. His wrist was wrapped up, but it didn’t seem like it was paining him. 

“Stop staring,” Watanuki said, and Shizuka wondered if he was looking out of their shared eye to see that. He had no control over it, but Watanuki had grown to master it. He had just recently expressed his regrets over that to Tsuyuri. 

Now, he felt the egg burning in his pocket as Watanuki and Mokona bantered. He wondered if Watanuki had ever seen it from his eye and wondered at it. But then again, Shizuka wasn’t prone to as intense emotions as Watanuki was. Or used to be. He had gentled slightly since becoming the shop owner. His tongue was still sharp, but he was no longer physically violent, or as loud. He wasn’t as annoying anymore. 

“I’m not staring,” he settled on saying. 

“Liar,” Watanuki said lightly. 

“Doumeki is a huge liar,” Mokona chimed in, before going back to drinking, “Another!”

“Oi, you shouldn’t be drinking this much,” Watanuki still poured him more though. 

Shizuka drank and drank, and never felt the effects of the alcohol. Not really. He wondered if Watanuki ever did. 

He went to study, and Watanuki cleaned up. He had his own room at the shop. He hadn’t asked for it, but one day he had been led to it by Maru who had told him that his stuff was in his room. He hadn’t asked Watanuki about it yet, figuring that to be a question for another day. He wondered if Watanuki’s other friends had rooms, or if this was just his way of saying he wanted Shizuka to stay over more often. 

The room was a bit extra since Shizuka didn’t typically sleep in it. He only slept in it when Watanuki had a job and was already asleep by the time Shizuka needed to rest. 

But tonight was different, and he made his way to Watanuki’s room. A large bed took up most of the space, and there were sheer curtains around the space. It was a room that welcomed as much as it commanded respect. 

Watanuki was changing into his night clothes when Shizuka entered. 

“You came,” he said, and if there was a trace of regret at that, Shizuka couldn’t hear it. He didn’t even know why Watanuki would regret what made them them. This was their relationship, and had been their relationship since Watanuki agreed to the terms that bound him to the shop. 

“Do you want me to go?” 

“Would you go if I asked?” Watanuki seemed to wonder that out loud, and Shizuka would do almost anything but leave him alone when he was already injured. 

“Let me see,” he asked instead. 

“There are so many things you could be asking me with that,” Watanuki frowned. 

“Your wrist. Did you clean it properly?” 

“As best I could.”

Which depending on his mood might mean not at all. Shizuka took hold of his wrist and unwrapped the bandage. Watanuki let him with a sigh. 

The flesh was torn and ripped. But it wasn’t as bad as the time Watanuki had almost died from not taking the proper payment. And Shizuka knew this like that would heal in time. For now, he rewrapped the wound in fresh bandages. 

“Your attention is appreciated, I assure you that I’m fine though,” Watanuki didn’t sound the least bit appreciative, but that was fine. Shizuka had learned a long time ago to listen to his actions rather than words. Watanuki didn’t know what he was saying half the time, not really. 

“You’re welcome,” he said, but he meant something else. He showed him what he meant with a kiss to his wrist. Watanuki grabbed at him, and glared as if offended by the sweetness of the gesture. Shizuka smiled. Watanuki forcibly pressed his lips to Shizuka’s, and they kissed for the first time that night. If this was truly his home, if Watanuki was truly his, he would have expected a welcome home kiss. But he kept his expectations low where Watanuki was concerned, because otherwise, he’d go gray before his time. 

He just wanted something more, and knew he was never going to get it. 

He told himself he was okay with that. The egg burned in his pocket. 

He eased back on the kissing, and the kiss gentled, just a bit. Watanuki didn’t appreciate that, and let him know with a hand clenching at the back of his head. He slid his hands into Watanuki’s robe, fingers touching cool skin, and smirked. Watanuki scoffed, and tugged him over to the bed by his tie. They settled on the mattress, and Watanuki undressed the both of them, muttering all the while about how annoying Shizuka was. 

“I can undress myself,” Shizuka said at one point, only to be met with a glare from Watanuki. He decided to silence himself, and allow the other man to undress him. Watanuki showed a lack of care as he undressed Shizuka. Shizuka was sure that a few of his buttons went missing in Watanuki’s haste to get him undressed. Watanuki needed him, and whether that was because he was one of the few people to remember him or because he was a warm body on a cold night, that didn’t matter. Shizuka also needed something, and Watanuki was the only person who could give it to him, who he wanted it from. But Watanuki never would give it to him, would he? 

Bare at last, but only in one way, they came together again and kissed. This time, Watanuki allowed the slow, gentle touches. This time, Watanuki kissed his way down Shizuka’s body. This time, Shizuka felt at least that Watanuki was showing his love in the only way he knew how. But he knew that was only what he was projecting from the other. 

Even as Watanuki took him apart in the most dangerous of ways, Shizuka knew that it didn’t mean anything more than what it appeared on the surface. Each thrust, and the hand against his cock meant so little. He knew that. So why was he still so hopeful for more? 

Afterwards, Watanuki helped him clean up, and for once Watanuki didn’t kick him out of the bed, or even insult him. He just rolled over Shizuka and went to sleep. 

Shizuka was not able to sleep so easily. 

His mother was getting older, and his father too. They came to him and told him, “We’re getting divorced.” 

_Finally,_ he couldn’t help but think, “And the temple?” he asked. 

“Now that you’re of age,” his father said, “It’s yours.” He was washing his hands of the place, running away one final time. 

They shared a meal together, and then his father left for his real life. Shizuka would never see him again, and that was okay. In the end, he hadn’t been much like a father anyway. Just a stranger who had helped create him. 

“You can stay here,” he told his mother, “I won’t kick you out.” 

“Thank you,” she said, “But I wouldn’t want to be in the way when you finally bring your wife here.”

“I don’t have a wife,” Shizuka said. 

“Your high school girlfriend? The one with the curly hair?” 

“Kunogi?” he hadn’t even been aware of his mother making that assumption. All this time, had she thought that? “She moved away, she’s going to a college up north.”

“Oh,” his mother said, “Then who have you been . . . ?”

“No one,” he said, because how did he explain Watanuki to someone who had met him several times but now didn’t remember him. “I’ve just been working late. You know how college is.” 

“I see,” his mother said. He could see in her eyes that she knew he was lying to her, but she couldn’t prove it. “Well then, I hope you earn your degree soon.”

Shizuka was explaining the meaning of peach blossoms to Watanuki on his birthday. They were drinking and talking as they always did now. Either that or had sex. There wasn’t much else to do when there weren’t any customers. 

“I see,” Watanuki said, and Shizuka wondered if he really did see. “If that’s the case, I won’t tell you that your birthday doesn’t suit you at all then.” 

Shizuka looked sharply at him. It was rare for Watanuki to admit to any wrongdoings, or faults. But now he was reaching into his yutaka and pulling out a ring. 

“What’s that?”

“What does it look like?” Watanuki sounded completely annoyed. But Shizuka just showed him what he thought it meant. 

He attempted to put it on his ring finger, but it wouldn’t fit. If it wasn’t for what he thought it was, what was he supposed to do with it? “It’s small.”

Watanuki gave him an odd look, “Well try harder!” 

He just looked at him. 

Watanuki blew smoke out, “It’s a thimble, strictly speaking. You can do sewing and such with it. But, that’s not what it’s true purpose is.” 

He felt disappointed in a way. A ring held so many meanings, but more importantly it was a symbol of commitment. Watanuki would never commit himself to anything save the task of waiting for Yuuko though. 

He watched Watanuki’s smoke curl up into the night air. As it reached the edge of the yard, he saw something. His eyes narrowed as he looked at it, or tried to look at it. 

“What?” Watanuki asked. 

“. . . beyond that wall.”

“Do you see something?” Watanuki asked. 

“I think there’s something there,” he said. 

Suddenly out of his shared eye with Watanuki, he caught sight of what had drawn his spiritual attention. It was a massive black smokey mass with many eyes.

“It’s been hanging around the shop for a while now.”

“Why haven’t I seen it before?”

“I don’t imagine that you would have noticed it before, since it’s only here occasionally.” Watanuki blew out more smoke, “Take that and put it on your index finger.” 

“It wouldn’t fit before.” 

“Do it.” 

So he did, and wasn’t surprised when something materialized before him. Of course it wasn’t just a normal ring. He didn’t know what to make of the bow in his hands, though, that was unexpected. As he studied the bow, there was a great rushing noise. He looked up to see the thing trying to eat Watanuki who only stood there calmly. 

“Watanuki!” He drew back the bow, recalling all those years ago what Yuuko had had him do. 

His arrow shot true, and the monster was purified, screaming horribly all the while. 

“What is this?” he looked at the dematerializing bow, and Watanuki brushed himself off in his perficational vision. 

“It’s a tool for purification made from the wood of a peach tree. It secures and embodies the power of the wearer. I should have known that it would take the shape of a bow in your case.” 

He watched as Watanuki drew symbols in the air, and then confronted him. 

“You cut the barrier just know, didn’t you?”

“I don’t think it wise that knowledge of this shop grows. Those things are attracted to my blood even now, but that is still no excuse to be lax.”

“I could have done that.” 

“No,” Watanuki said, “Even with your knowledge. . . it’s your birthday after all.”

They shared a quiet look. 

“Was this in the storeroom?” he asked. 

“No, most of what’s in there isn’t mines, after all. It was from the spider lady, a repayment for that job.” That job referred to the thing with the crimson pearl he was sure. He hadn’t really done anything at the time. Just went apartment seeking. 

But, Watanuki didn’t look injured. So that meant that the payment must have been equal. 

“Of course, handing over the crimson pearl and getting the thimble in exchange weren’t equal. I had to persuade her with a taste of my blood. It seems I am quite valuable.

“Even when you can’t see them, you can still tell when something’s wrong by the shape of its aura. With that you now have a weapon you can use anytime. Each time it's summoned, it should be a tool with which you can use.” Watanuki took off his cracked glasses and stared at them for a long moment. 

“You’ll shoot,” he said. “When the time is right, when things are dangerous, without hesitation, you’ll shoot.” 

“. . .” The words came out before he thought too long about it, “Even to you?” 

“Especially if it’s me,” Watanuki looked bitter as he confirmed that. Shizuka was bitter as he looked down at the ring in his hand. This was a promise ring, but not of a promise he wanted to make. Yet another thing to tie him to Watanuki. 

“Ahhh,” Watanuki said, “they’re broken.” Referring to his glasses, “If you’re staying over, take a bath first. And if you plan on drinking more, do so in your room.” A quiet dismissal, and Watanuki was gone, leaving him alone with the ring on his finger. 

“I still have to make a choice,” he said to himself in that cool night air. He was feeling the weight of the responsibility weighing him down. Watanuki would tear himself apart for Yuuko if they let him. 

“How is he?” Kunogi asked when they met up for lunch. They were due at Watanuki’s for dinner for his birthday. “I can’t help but feel like he’s lying to me on the phone.”

“He’s fine,” Shizuka said, and he was being honest with her as best he could. Watanuki was fine, in the end, wasn’t he? Kunogi had run away, but Shizuka was still there to help. It was all he could do in the end. He was in love with a person who was selfish in the worst way. 

“I see,” Kunogi said, and he wondered if she really did see. They would go to Watanuki’s and even though it was his birthday, he would have prepared all the food. It was just his way. 

Kunogi and Watanuki looked charming together, black heads bent towards each other, and trading “I love yous” and well wishes. Watanuki had never said “I love you” to Shizuka. He had never even indicated that he liked Shizuka. Shizuka tried not to let it bother him too much. 

Tsuyuri was there as well, and she wasn’t old enough to drink, but she poured everyone a glass, and acted like the perfect hostess. Watanuki allowed it. Shizuka tolerated it. 

He wanted to be the one that Watanuki depended most on, after all. 

When he was younger, he had wanted to go into science. He had wanted to be a doctor and help heal people like he had been healed. But in the end, it wasn’t science that had saved him was it? It was the power of prayer and belief that had saved him. It was respect to the gods, and following a tradition that had blessed him. So, maybe in the end he was fulfilling his childhood wish. That was what he told himself as he walked across the stage to get his diploma. 

He came upon the scene of Watanuki having close relations with the spider woman one day. She was on his lap and drinking his blood from a cut that she healed with a swipe of her tongue. She kissed him, and then left through the backyard. 

“What was that?” he asked. 

“Payment,” Watanuki said. “I’m told I’m delicious.” 

“Do you do that often then?”

“Not enough to make a habit of it. Since you’re here, I suppose it’s time to make dinner. We’re having soba tonight,” Watanuki brushed off his clothes and stood to go into the kitchen. 

Shizuka realized then, as he watched Watanuki walk away, that the other man did not love him in the same way that Shizuka loved Watanuki. Otherwise, he wouldn’t do things like this, right? 

“We can never be enough for him,” Kunogi said, and he had class in five minutes, but he never rejected a phone call from Kunogi. The years had seen him and her slip into a routine of sorts. “We can love him all we want, but the one he truly loves died a long time ago,” Kunogi said. There was crying in the background, and she put him on hold for a moment. 

“How’s Megumi?” he asked when she came back, “How’s your husband doing too while I’m at it?”

“They’re both fine. Megumi is starting to teeth though, she’s biting everything,” Kunogi said. 

“I can’t even imagine.” Children were something like a fairytale to Shizuka. He had seen Kunogi while she was pregnant, but hadn’t yet seen the baby. And knowing how often she visited, he probably never would. Babies couldn’t enter into the shop probably, and Kunogi would never wish for her child to have need of Watanuki’s services. If Shizuka thought he would have children, he would have done the same. 

“Maybe you and Kohane-chan can come and visit us up here and see her?” Himawari suggested. 

“Maybe,” he said. 

Tsuyuri had come to his university for the same reason he had come to it. They both wanted to help Watanuki in any way possible. He had said once, when Watanuki got really injured that he should have become a doctor. But he already knew that what injuries Watanuki got were going to be supernatural, and all the human medicine in the world wouldn’t save him. Tsuyuri knew that as well. 

That was why she was there, with him now helping him out in class and what not. 

People thought they were dating, and he didn’t do anything to discourage the rumors because he couldn’t care less. Tsuyuri didn’t love him, not in that way. 

“Shizuka-kun,” she’d say when they weren’t at school. “Doumeki-san,” at school and when around others. She was playing the game well, after all. He played it as well as he could. 

“Doumeki-sensei,” one of his colleagues said, “Would you be free this Friday to go out to lunch?” 

She was pretty, but not as pretty as Tsuyuri had grown up to be, and not at all like Watanuki. She just wasn’t his type when he knew his type was and would always be Watanuki. 

“Friday?” He had been planning on leaving right after his last class of the day. Watanuki had texted him a list of supplies, and he wanted to bring it to him that day. The other days he would be caught up with advising stuff and wouldn’t be able to make it to the shops in time. “Sorry, I can’t make it.”

“What about over the weekend then?” she asked. He considered her. 

“No, I won’t be free then either. I have plans.”

“With her?” 

Shizuka paused, “With who?”

“Tsuyuri-san,” and the way the woman said her name was so ugly that he frowned at her. 

“And if so?”

“You really shouldn’t associate with such a child. Associate yourself with me instead.” 

Shizuka was shaking his head before she finished, “You don’t get to decide who I should associate with. No one does.” He left her then. 

His phone rang soon after, and he picked it up. It was Watanuki, from the shop. 

“Don’t come over for a few days.” 

“A job?” 

“Yes. I’ll let Kohane know as well.” 

“Don’t you still need some things?”

“I’ll make do,” Watanuki said. “Just don’t come over until I tell you it’s okay.”

“Is something wrong?”

“No, and it shouldn’t be. Just do as I say.”

So he did, and left Watanuki alone. He wanted to see him, but he let him be and went about his life. He advised students, and went to dinner with Tsuyuri on Friday. Saturday he drove up and visited with Kunogi and her husband and child, and by Sunday he was back home. His mother looked relieved to see him. They set about cleaning up the temple. He was always careful now of spiderwebs when he cleaned, not wanting another grudge to come upon him. He had told his mother to be as well, and the woman had merely stared at him for a while before agreeing. 

Now he was sweeping the courtyard when he got a phone call from Watanuki. 

He wondered how Watanuki had known the woman would be there when he went out to the main entrance. He called 911, and then didn’t get into the ambulance with her despite the odd looks he got from the paramedics. Instead, he gathered up what Watanuki had told him to, and hurried to the shop. 

“How did you know?” he asked. Watanuki didn’t answer, but that was answer enough. “Was she a customer? What did she want?” 

Watanuki sighed, “Honestly, what does anyone see in you? All you’re doing is asking annoying questions. Isn’t it enough that you’ve helped her?” 

“It’s not like you to help someone out for free,” not anymore at least, Shizuka couldn’t help but think. 

“Who said it was for free?” Watanuki muttered, “Since you’re here, should I be expecting to make dinner?”

“No, I ate at the temple. I would like a bath though. Some snacks and liquor too.” 

“What am I? Your wife?” Watanuki stood up, “No eating or drinking in the bathroom. Mokona does enough of that.”

Shizuka watched him go. 

“I can’t help but worry about Kimihiro-kun,” Tsuyuri said once when they were heading over. His hands were full of bags, and she had his briefcase. She had insisted on helping to share the burden. 

“What’s he done now?”

“More like. . .what will he do?” Tsuyuri asked, “In the future when we’re gone.”

He looked down at her, “That won’t be for a while yet.” 

“But that future is fast approaching, isn’t it?”

He couldn’t help but stop walking a bit when he heard that. The future was fast approaching, wasn’t it? Already he could see himself aging and getting further away from Watanuki. Their times no longer aligned. 

Him and Tsuyuri were an accident. One night the entire department went out drinking to celebrate something that he struggled to remember in the morning. The night before was a literal blur. He remembered getting a text from Watanuki not to come over, and so he had gone out with the department as he seldom did. Tsuyuri had been there, and they busied themselves by talking about Watanuki's latest customer and possible reasons why both had been banned from the shop. 

In the end, what conclusion had they come to? 

He didn’t know. All he knew was that he was in his room at the temple, and sleeping beside him was Tsuyuri. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what he had done. 

He dressed himself, and left her alone so he could think. He went outside to the garden and started picking out the weeds. 

She joined him after a while, dressed in her summer dress from yesterday. She had braided her curly blond hair, and watched him from the steps. 

“We’re getting old,” she said. 

“You’re younger than me.” 

She wrapped her thin arms around her waist. He settled on the grass and watched her. Had he called out Watanuki’s name last night? 

Had she? 

He didn’t know. 

“I’m also a TA at the school you work for,” she said, “If you want to discuss ethics.” 

He sighed, “I’m--”

“Don’t apologise to me. We used each other, we both did.” 

“Then what do you want me to say?”

“Why have you looked so sad lately?” she asked, “Especially when I bring up Kimihiro.” 

So he told her the full story. He even told her what Himawari had said. 

“I’ve been thinking lately,” Tsuyuri said, “About the future. What will happen to Kimihiro when we’re gone, Shizuka?” 

“I don’t know,” Shizuka said, trying not to linger on the future. But he was already past 30, and not getting any younger. It was something he was going to have to face sooner than later. 

“I don’t know either. But,” she said, “I have a plan I’m willing to bet on.”

“What plan?” he asked. 

So, she told him. She was going to marry someone, and have a child with them that could look after Watanuki when she was gone. 

“And,” she said, “I’d like that person to be you, Shizuka.” 

“I’m marrying Tsuyuri,” he told Watanuki over dinner. He didn’t tell him all the details of why and how yet. He just wanted to see how he’d react to the news. 

Watanuki didn’t even pause when serving the food, “Oh? Well you better treat her right! She’s a good girl, she deserves so much better than you.” 

“What’s wrong with me?” he asked. 

“What isn’t wrong with you? All you do is show up and eat my food and never say thanks! Your face is annoying, and your voice is annoying, and you’re just irritating.” Watanuki finished that off by pouring him some tea, and leaning back on his hands, “But, if Kohane has decided on you, I don’t suppose I can change her mind, can I?” 

“What about my mind? Aren’t you going to try and change that?” 

“What? Can you be so easily swayed? Doubtful, you’re too stubborn for that.” Watanuki waved a hand, “If you say you’re marrying Kohane, then you’re marrying her. That’s about all I can expect to hear on that subject.” 

But even still, even with that knowledge, he still kissed Watanuki and it still led to more. It leads to clothes dropped casually in the hall to be cleaned up in the morning. It led to Watanuki braced against his bed frame while Doumeki kissed his spine. It led to his fingers deep inside Watanuki, and Watanuki ordering him to hurry up. But he wanted to take his time with this. This would be the last time after all. 

He went too slow for Watanuki who turned around and forced him onto his back. He took control of their pace, and he rode him until they were both sweaty and exhausted. Too exhausted to care about properly cleaning up, just using Doumeki’s shirt to wipe off their bodies. 

When he got the invitations, he dropped by the shop. Watanuki was in a job, the girls told him, and set him up with beer. He didn’t wait long before Watanuki showed up in a yukata of Yuuko’s. He could tell by all the flowers on it. That woman had never worn the same outfit twice, and Watanuki seemed determined to do the same. 

“I heard you had a job,” he said. 

“Hmm, it went well,” Watanuki said. He looked off. 

“What’s wrong?” 

“Nothing. Those words weren’t for me.” 

“. . . I see,” Shizuka said. But he didn’t know if he truly did. Watanuki’s invitation sat heavily in his bag. It was more symbolic than anything. He and Tsuyuri both knew he couldn’t come. 

Watanuki lit up a rolled cigarette, and Shizuka was instantly reminded of his grandfather. 

“That’s new.” 

“A gift from my last customer.” 

“My grandfather used to smoke those.” 

“I’m surprised you remember that, you were so young when he died!” 

“. . . is that from him?” 

Watanuki didn’t answer. Shizuka stopped watching him, and watched the moonlight instead. 

“Is he well? I know that’s silly to ask since he’s dead but . . .”

“He’s well,” Watanuki said, “He’s worried about you. Since you’re at such an important date in your life. He says your luck can change now.” 

“I see.” 

“Do you?”

“Yes.” 

“Hm.” 

“Here,” Shizuka handed him the invitation. Watanuki stared at it. 

“You know I can’t--”

“Even still,” he said, “I want you to have it.” 

Watanuki accepted it, looked down at it, and smiled, “Tell Kohane I said thanks.” 

“Tell her yourself. She’s supposed to be calling tonight.” 

“Fine. Geez, what does she see in you anyway?” Watanuki said, “For a while now I’ve been being bugged by one sided love matches for you. Do you even realize how many women you’ve tempted with your looks apparently?” 

“Yeah?” 

“Even still, Kohane wants to marry someone as troublesome as you. She must be a saint! You better take good care of her!”

“Of course. But,” and he set down his drink, “the one Tsuyuri cares about most is you.” 

Watanuki looked shocked, as if he hadn’t known that. Watanuki obviously didn’t know what to say to that. They stared at each other before Watanuki looked away first. 

“And you’re okay with that?” he asked. 

“Yeah.” Because wasn’t that why they were getting married? The most important person in both of their lives was Watanuki. They were doing this for his sake. But of course, Watanuki didn’t suspect that at all, did he? 

“Hey, just now, did you call her ‘Tsuyuri’?” 

“Yes.”

“You’re getting married in two months, isn’t that a bit much?”

“She calls me by my first name so I don’t see what the problem is.”

“There’s a big problem! Besides you don’t even understand how lucky you are to marry such a cute girl like her!” 

“What? Are you jealous?” 

“Eh? Jealous of who exactly?”

“Me, for marrying such a cute girl.”

“No, I’m angry that you don’t understand how lucky you are.”

Shizuka remembered the morning when Tsuyuri had proposed to him. 

_“Let’s get married.”_ She had said, and all for Watanuki’s sake she gave up any future chance of happiness to be with anyone else. She was currently two months pregnant after their slip up, and hoped that she wouldn’t be showing too much at the wedding. 

“No, trust me,” Shizuka said, “I understand exactly how lucky I am.” But Watanuki didn’t, and that was the problem wasn’t it? 

The week of the wedding he didn’t go over to Watanuki’s no matter how much the man texted him. Instead he let Kohane go in his place. He knew if he went, then he would cave in and they would end up having sex again like they had the night he’d given him the invitation. And every single time since then. He hadn’t been able to stop himself from falling into the habit of having sex with Watanuki whenever he could. He was a drug that he could not quit. But he owed it to Tsuyuri to at least try. 

She was to be his wife, and he wanted to at least start their marriage off by being faithful to her. 


	4. Flowers on the Grave

His parents didn’t love each other, Haruka realized this when he was about 7. They loved him and his sister, Reiko, but not each other. They were friends, that much couldn’t be called into doubt, in the sense that they were friendly to one another, but they did not exchange good morning kisses like his friend’s parents did. His mother didn’t kiss his father goodbye, or welcome him home with a kiss. They weren’t physically affectionate, or even affectionate with words towards one another like they were to him and Reiko. They were just two people who lived in the same temple, it seemed. Two people who had happened to have two children together. 

They talked over his and Reiko’s head about a man named Kimihiro or Watanuki depending on if his father or mother was talking. He wanted to meet this man. Reiko didn’t. 

“You think they’d both be cheating on each other with the same person?” she asked when they were eight, and going to school. 

“I don’t think that our family is normal,” he said. Reiko just shrugged. But Haruka couldn’t let it go. It haunted him. He just wanted to meet the person responsible for his father’s frequent absences from their table, and for his mother’s dressing up for some days when she’d be running errands. 

As he made this wish, he tripped outside of a building while walking. 

The building was like no other building he had ever seen before. And he had walked past this place tons of times. Never before had he seen it. A gust of wind blew his cap past the gates, and he had to chase over it. He stepped inside, and instantly knew he had stepped into something he shouldn’t have had. Reiko would laugh at him if she knew that he was flipping out over a building. 

“I’m not scared,” he said firmly and picked his hat off from the front step. The door swung open. 

“A customer, a customer!” two voices called out as one. He looked up to see two girls-blue and pink-standing in the door frame. 

“Doumeki?” one asked. 

“Doumeki,” the other confirmed. 

They knew his name. That frightened him, and he turned to go. 

“I thought you said we had a customer, but it’s just Doumeki? How many times do I have to tell you he’s not a guest?”

“But Watanuki!”

He wasn’t too far away to hear one of the girls say that. He turned around. Standing in the doorway was a too thin teenager in Chinese clothing. He had catlike features, and was staring at Haruka in shock. 

“Haruka?” he said, “Doumeki?”

“A mini-Doumeki,” one girl said. 

“A tiny Doumeki,” the other said. 

“How did you know my name?” he demanded. 

“Wow,” the man said, “I never imagined you’d be the first one to show up on my doorstep. I always thought it’d be your sister. . . what was her name? Reiko-chan?”

“Who are you?”

“Watanuki Kimihiro,” he said. 

_“Watanuki texted me, I’ll be going now,”_ his father would say. 

_“Kimihiro says that he wants to talk with me over lunch, so I won’t be here when you get home from school,”_ his mother would say. 

“You look the spitting image of your great-grandfather,” Watanuki Kimihiro said. “Would you like some tea?” 

“I can’t accept food from a stranger.” 

“That’s right, but, I’m not a stranger at all. I know your Mommy and your Dad quite well.” 

Haruka hadn’t even spent five minutes with Watanuki and he knew he hated him. 

“Ah, right, you’re Haruka Jr., but that’s a bit long. I think I’ll just call you. . . Haruka-chan, that’s cute right?”

“Don’t -chan me.” 

“Haruka-chan, do you like chocolate cake?”

“No,” he lied. 

“Ah, too bad. Well, in exchange for granting your wish, can I ask you to deliver this cake to your house for me?” 

“What wish of mines did you grant?”

“‘I want to meet the person responsible for why my parents don’t love each other,’ wasn’t it?” Watanuki said. “This is a shop that grants wishes. Do you feel that your wish has been granted?” 

He was silent. 

Watanuki lit up his pipe once they were done having sex. He tended to the pipe like it was his child. But Shizuka supposed it was one of Yuuko’s former prized possessions, so it just made sense that he cared for it so. Shizuka wished sometimes that Watanuki cared half as much for Shizuka as he did for that pipe. 

All he was to Watanuki was a warm body during cold nights, Shizuka knew that. But he loved him too much to give him up. 

On their wedding night, after he and Kohane had tried to sleep together, he had released her from her wedding vows to him. 

“I won’t be able to not be with Watanuki. So you can sleep with whoever you like.”

“Alright,” she had said, “I understand.” 

Five months later she’d given birth to their twin children, Haruka and Reiko. Haruka had been named after his grandfather, and Reiko after one of Kohane’s relatives. She had not gotten pregnant since then, and they had not slept together since then. 

They all lived, he thought, peacefully together. It was a life that wasn’t enviable, but it was his life. He was content with it. 

Or so he thought until that night when after they had fucked, Watanuki lit up that damnable pipe and said casually, “I met Haruka-chan.” 

“How is Grandfather?” 

“Nope, wrong ‘Haruka’,” Watanuki said, “I mean your son. I met your son.” 

He sat up in bed, and looked at him, “When?” 

“Two days ago. Didn’t you get the chocolate cake I sent home with him?” 

“There was no cake.” 

“I wonder what he did with it then?” 

“How did you meet him?”

Watanuki smiled, and it was so like Yuuko it hurt. “He had a wish, and I granted it.” 

“What was his wish?” 

“He wanted to meet the man responsible for his parents not loving each other.” 

Shizuka was silent as he watched as Watanuki’s smile didn’t slip from his face. He had changed so much. He no longer acted like he had the same moral compass guiding him that Shizuka had. Was he even human anymore?

“Who did you show him?”

“Me. He blames me for you both not loving each other.” 

Shizuka didn’t know what to say, other than, “I love Tsuyuri.” 

“But you’re not in love with her, are you?” 

Shizuka was silent, and Watanuki blew some smoke his way. “Well, in the end, that’s really none of my business, is it?”

But it was, Shizuka wanted to say, but didn’t. He was closer to 50 than he was to 40, and he felt in his heart that soon he would be losing Watanuki for good. 

“Haruka, did you meet Watanuki?” Shizuka asked his first-born over dinner the next night. His son looked guilty before hiding it. But that told Shizuka all he needed to know. 

“What? No fair!” Reiko said, “I want to meet Watanuki-san.”

“No, you don’t,” Haruka said, “He’s crazy.” 

“He’s eccentric,” Kohane corrected him gently, “But I am glad you got to meet him. Maybe you will soon, Reiko-chan.” 

“I hope so,” Reiko declared. Her brown hair was caught up in a ponytail on the side of her head. She looked like his mother, who wasn’t present at the table, having taken sick to her bed a few days before. Doumeki Ayame was getting old. “I really want to,” she said. 

Shizuka didn’t want either of his children meeting Watanuki, but it was too late for that. They had been born to take care of him, so they had to meet him at some point. It was just, halfway through their first year of being alive he had realized how incredibly messed up it was what he and Kohane had planned for them. Replacements for him and her to stick around with their undying true love. Shizuka realized it was messed up, but what choice did he have? 

“Watanuki said he gave you a cake to bring home, what did you do with it?” Shizuka asked. 

Haruka looked stubborn, “It was from a stranger so I threw it away.”

“Well,” Kohane said, “now you know him so he’s not a stranger. Please don’t throw gifts away from Kimihiro. They are very important to your dad and me.” 

“Why?” Haruka asked, dropping his chopsticks, and his rice bowl as well, “Why are you both like this? What about him makes you like him so much?” 

He and Kohane shared a look, one that came from being married for almost ten years. They communicated without words, as Haruka fussed with his dinner, and Reiko looked on with interest. 

“You talk to him,” she said with a glance downward. 

“Why me?” he asked with a look to the side. 

“Because you are his father,” she said with a sigh, and a look between him and Haruka. 

“Watanuki is an old friend,” he started, “from when I was in high school.” 

“Then why does he look like a kid,” Haruka asked. 

“He looks like a kid?” Reiko asked, “I thought he was a grownup!” 

“Well, he’s not,” Haruka said. “And he’s living with two little girls! And some sort of monster!” 

“You know, he’s really not a bad person, Haruka-kun,” Kohane said, “Me and your father both love him very much, so how could he be a bad person?” 

That, Shizuka realized as he stared at his son, was probably the problem. 

“I’m done eating,” Haruka said. 

“Alright, dear,” Kohane said, “Please take your dishes to the kitchen.” 

Haruka complied, and then went to his room. Reiko remained. 

“Tell me about Watanuki,” she demanded. So Kohane told her that Watanuki had the power to attract spirits and see them like Reiko and Haruka did, but that he hadn’t the natural abilities to exorcise them like both of them did. 

“But he’s learned how to do it,” Kohane said, “because that is what was necessary.” 

Watanuki didn’t love Shizuka, he knew this. But Shizuka loved Watanuki so much that even though it was unrequited, he stayed with him. He stayed beside him. Because that was the path he had chosen. 

“Have you met Reiko yet?” he asked over dinner one night. He had just gotten done exorcising a spirit from a woman’s stalker for Watanuki. 

“Not yet,” Watanuki said. His twins were pushing eleven now. “But who knows, maybe sooner than you think. And how is young Haruka-chan? He hasn’t shown up in a while now.” 

“You know I don’t like you using him for assignments.” 

“It’s better that he get introduced to this world safely, right?” Watanuki spooned him up some more rice, and poured him more tea. 

“Right,” Mokona said, “I like Haruka-chan. He’s funny.” 

“Right?” Watanuki said, “He has so many interesting ideas about how the world works. It’s charming.” 

“He’s always been like that.” 

“He’s a regular grump,” Watanuki said, “It’s cute. You and Kohane-chan had a cute son. I’m sure your daughter is beautiful.” 

“She is,” Shizuka said. At least the boys at her school thought so. She had yet to express an interest in a single one of them though. Reiko was in a class of her own in that regard. He had asked Kunogi what she thought of that, and Kunogi had been quiet for a moment. 

“Megumi was like that too at that age,” she had said, “She’ll grow out of it.” 

“You look worried about them though. I assure you that I’ve peeked at all of your fortunes, and I could find nothing but good things in them. I’d warn you if I suspected something bad might happen.” 

“Would you really?” 

Watanuki considers him for a moment. 

Mokona speaks up first, “Of course he would!” 

Megumi cupped Reiko’s face, and kissed her. It was a deep kiss, one that had Reiko only wanting more. She pulled the smaller but older girl closer to her, and swiped her tongue across her lips. She wanted this, she wanted her. As much as her as she could get. 

Megumi pulled back, and kissed her neck, “I missed you,” she said. 

They only got to see each other yearly, and had only started this last year. But Reiko had been in love with her for as long as she’d known her. It wasn’t fair that distance kept that from one another, or their parents rather. But both of their parents didn’t know about this, and neither girl was inclined to confess to this. 

Their parents, save Megumi’s father, were at Watanuki’s place. It was April 1st. Every year like clockwork their parents would disappear for the day into a shop to celebrate a mysterious owner’s birthday. They had been doing this for as long as Reiko could remember. 

They fell asleep holding hands in Reiko’s futon, while Haruka raged on his video games in the next room. 

The next morning, her father was the one who discovered them lazily trading kisses in the morning. He looked resigned as he talked to her when Megumi and her parents had left. 

“What were you doing?” 

“Kissing Megumi.” 

“Why?”

“Because I like her,” Reiko thought that was obvious, and looked at her dad with concern, “You kiss people that you like, don’t you, Daddy?” 

Her dad looked pained, “Well yes, but I’m not 14.” 

“I’ll be 15 soon!” 

“And then Megumi will be 17. She’s too old for you.” 

Reiko then dropped a bomb, “Aren’t you too old for Watanuki then?”

Or thought she did, but her dad didn’t even change his expression, “Watanuki?” 

“I met him. He’s just as young as Haruka said,” Reiko watched as her dad seemed to pale. “But he’s a lovely person, unlike what Haruka said.” 

Her father looked pained. 

Shizuka hadn’t gotten any summons from Watanuki lately, so he dropped by after work one day unplanned. 

“Welcome home!” Mokona said. 

“Welcome home!” Maru and Moro both said. 

He didn’t bother to correct them. “Is he awake?” 

The creature and the girls shared a look, “Master is awake yes.” 

But he wasn’t coming out to greet him. 

“With a customer?” 

“In a way,” Mokona said. 

That was a weird way to phrase it, and Shizuka wondered at that as he took off his coat. By the time he had given it to the girls to hang up, Watanuki was coming down the hallway. 

“Is your customer gone?” 

Watanuki smiled, “Customer? Yes, I suppose he is.” 

“A man? You usually get women, don’t you?” 

“Mhm, I’ve had a few men before,” Watanuki said. “Women tend to be more honest about their desires than men are though. At least that’s my theory on it. Now, what brings you here? I didn’t text you, did I?” 

“No,” and he followed Watanuki outside, as the other man asked the girls to fetch them some sake. 

“Then what brings you here?”

Shizuka forgot sometimes that they were not just lovers. He had to have an excuse to come over. 

“You didn’t tell me not to come.”

“True, but that’s because I haven’t had a need for you lately.” 

“Why not?”

“Haruka-chan has been helping me out lately,” Watanuki said, “He says that he will do this so that you don’t have to. He wants to keep his father out of my clutches, I imagine.” 

“You’ve been using my son to replace me?” 

“He asked me to do so,” Watanuki settled down on the back porch, and looked up at him, “And who am I to try to deny a Doumeki anything that they want?” 

Shizuka settled down next to him, “You’ve denied me plenty.” 

“Have I really?” 

“Yes.” 

Watanuki looked at him, and looked annoyed for a moment. He then turned away, and sighed. 

“Reiko has been by.” 

“You’ve met her?” 

“She’s beautiful. She told me that she wouldn’t mind replacing your role in my life, if only she weren’t gay.” 

“I see.” He would have to have a talk with his daughter, he was figuring that out quickly. And his son as well. 

“She’s a sweet girl,” Watanuki said, “Be gentler with her.” 

“I’m being as gentle as I can with her.” 

“You don’t know how to be gentle at all,” Watanuki said. Shizuka set down his beer, and looked at him. Really looked at him. He could see his own golden eye reflecting back at him, and Watanuki’s remaining blue eye. He wondered at that, but didn’t wonder out loud if Watanuki had ever looked at his life through their shared eye. If that’s how he had recognized his children. 

“I know how to be gentle,” he said. Watanuki didn’t say anything, but his eyes said “Prove it.” So, Shizuka did. He undressed him on the porch, took off layer by layer out there in the open night sky. Their naked bodies moved as one in the moonlight, and Watanuki looked as he always would. Something eternal that Shizuka would never be able to claim no matter how much he wanted to. He had been out of reach for many years now, and always would be. No matter how many times they fucked, because that was all they did, they never ‘made love’, Watanuki would always be just a step away from him. But he didn’t mind that terribly much. 

So, some god would be sure to forgive him when he took his time that night. Some higher power than Watanuki would have to be lenient to him pressing kisses to his skin, and bruising up his skin in an obvious way. 

“What are you doing?” Watanuki asked at one point, but then stopped asking questions and stopped making demands when Shizuka pressed his tongue inside of Watanuki for the first time. Watanuki’s legs shaked around his head, and his breath was heavy in Shizuka’s ears. And all the while he was aware, hyper aware of the moonlight dancing on Watanuki’s skin, and the shadows lingering on his own skin. He was aware of Watanuki’s cock heavy in his hand as he entered him. He was aware of the tight clench of Watanuki’s body as he glared at him for taking so long to reach this point. Usually they played by Watanuki’s rules. But tonight, this night, was for Shizuka. 

He took his time as he thrust into Watanuki’s willing body. He squeezed his cock, and kept him from coming as he went slow and steady towards his own climax. He took from him what he’d never taken before. And Watanuki let him, as if sensing Shizuka’s anger at this whole situation. It wasn’t fair, but life wasn’t fair, and had never been fair since Watanuki had made that wish. 

His children were older now, and he was feeling his age as he lost more and more energy despite his pace. Anger sat low in his stomach, eating away at his stamina. 

Watanuki lifted a hand up, and yanked his head down for a kiss. It was a terrible thing, all teeth and at the end of it, Watanuki drew his blood. There was a noise in the garden, but he didn’t stop looking enough to look, and Watanuki kept hold of his face so he couldn’t even if he wanted. He was sure it was nothing, even as he was sure it was something from the amused look that flashed across Watanuki’s face for a moment. 

He was bleeding, figuratively, when he came and when he let Watanuki come at last. His heart felt sick. 

“Was that gentle enough for you?” 

Watanuki looked at the come cooling on his belly and shrugged his pale shoulders. “Gentle doesn’t suit us.” 

Haruka stumbled upon something he didn’t want to have ever witness in his life. His father with that man, that man that he hated above all others. He hadn’t lingered once he realized that they weren’t fighting but were having sex on the back porch of all places. He could already hear Watanuki’s voice in his head. 

“Haven’t I told you to use the front door? You’re just like your father.” 

He knew why he had been born. It didn’t take a genius to figure out for real whose child he was meant to be. For whose sake he had been allowed to exist. He wondered how his mother and father had even beared to touch each other long enough to procreate in order to successfully implant sperm into his mother. How many times had that taken when they couldn’t even touch one another today?

He hadn’t wanted to stumble across that scene, but stumble he had. He had dropped the groceries in the yard, probably cracked the eggs. Well good, that was what they deserved. 

He cried because his family was so messed up, and could never be normal. They had been cursed by a man named Watanuki Kimihiro long before he was born. His parents had made a sacrifice of him, but he would not do the same to his own kids. No, in fact, he would have no kids. He wouldn’t give away anything to that demon that lived in the shop. He wouldn’t make the ultimate sacrifice. 

He would do all he could to keep his parents away from Watanuki. Especially his father. He couldn’t make them love each other, but he could detox them from his poison. He would take it all up upon himself. 

He made his way home, confident in his choice. 

Reiko, she was on the phone with Megumi when he got home. They were chatting about Reiko’s classes, and Megumi, he assumed, was offering her tips. They were planning on attending the same college in Tokyo and moving in together. His sister was 16 and had planned out the rest of her life. 

“Why don’t you hate Watanuki?” he demanded. 

“Megumi, I have to go, Haruka’s home and yelling at me.” 

“Reiko!” 

“Why should I hate him? He’s done nothing but good things for our family, after all.” Reiko said seriously. She cupped her chin in her hands and stared at him with eyes just like their mother. “Why do you hate him?” 

“Reiko,” he said seriously, “Other people’s parents _love_ each other. Hell, even Megumi’s parents love each other. Other people’s parents don’t go on dates with other people, or have sex with some weird immortal loser.” 

“So what?” Reiko asked, “That’s their lives, and they’re happy like that. Shouldn’t you be more supportive of our parents' happiness?” 

“How can you even say that to me?” Haruka said, “You don’t even know what disgusting thing I just saw.” 

“What disgusting thing did you just see, o’brother mines?” Reiko sounded resigned, and bored with the topic. 

“Dad having sex with Watanuki,” he said in a take that type of voice. “On the back porch where anyone could see it.” 

“Okay? At least he’s getting laid. Unlike you. Go find yourself a nice girl or boy and have some fun with them.” 

“How can you be so laid back like that! Dad was openly cheating on Mom, and you’re just like ‘whatever’, about it! I don’t get it, Reiko! Something isn’t right with our family, he’s gotten to all of your heads and made you think this is normal!” 

“It is normal for us.” Reiko stood up, and waved him out of her room, “Go have your angry teenage meltdown somewhere else. Some of us have girlfriends to call.” 

“You stupid dyke,” he said angrily, and kicked her wall. 

“I might be a dyke, but I’m not stupid. I can tell when something’s not worth fighting against. They were this way long before we were born, after all. You think you can change our parents? Good fucking luck.”

Haruka screamed, and left out of the room, slamming the door behind him as best he could. It attracted the attention of his grandmother who was leaving her room. 

“Haruka-kun? What’s wrong?” she asked. 

“Everything,” he said, “everything is wrong, Grandmother.” 

And everything was, and would keep being wrong. There was nothing that could be done to fix the shitstorm that was his life, short of killing Watanuki, he figured. But he didn’t think even he in all his anger could do that. So he settled on hating him. And would hate him for the rest of his life. 

Shizuka got the phone call on May 10th, 20xx. The twins were 20, and in college. Reiko was studying business, and Haruka was studying medicine. Neither had wanted to study folklore like him and their mother had. He was okay with that, he supposed, in the end he had to be okay with it. His children were allowed to choose their own paths in life. 

But the phone call wasn’t about his children. No, it was about the cousin who had been poised to inherit the temple should anything happen to the main Doumeki branch. He was dead, he and his wife. All they had left behind was a daughter. Mei. 

She was five years old, and all wavy black hair and big brown eyes. She looked at him, and called him “Uncle Shizuka.” Reiko was taken with her, and so was Haruka however reluctant he was to admit it. 

“You’re starting over?” Watanuki asked, “You were almost done raising children.” 

“I don’t really have a choice. We’re all the family she has left aside from some distant relatives of her mom’s.”

“And did Kohane agree to this?” 

“She insisted on it.” 

“I see. Well, then that’s that. Congratulations, you’ll be a daddy again.” 

“I’m just her uncle. Not a dad.” 

“She’s five, and she’ll get tired of calling you that. Soon enough, you’ll be ‘Daddy’.” Watanuki laughed a bit, “Not that Haruka-chan or Reiko-chan ever called you that.” 

“Reiko does when she wants something.” 

“Reiko would.” 

“Yeah. Did you know she was planning on marrying Megumi-san?” he asked. Watanuki tapped his pipe out, and looked up at the moon. 

“I knew. She’s told me a lot over the years.” 

“Like what?”

“She told me when she got her first crush, and when she first developed feelings for Megumi-chan. Not that I’ve ever met Megumi-chan. No, that one has no wish. Not yet. Possibly never.” 

“Will you meet Mei now that I’ve adopted her?”

“Who knows,” Watanuki said, “It’s hard to say. She’s an extraordinarily powerful child though, I can tell you that much.” 

“You mean she’s. . .”

“She has a lot in common with Haruka,” Watanuki said, raising up a leg, and smirking at Shizuka, “And I mean the senior Haruka, not junior.” 

“With Grandfather?” he asked just to be sure. 

“Yes,” Watanuki confirmed. “You’ll see what I mean.” 

Mei attracted spirits to her like Watanuki had once upon a time. Haruka took up escorting her places since he had the same power of repealing them that Shizuka did. He took her to and from school even though he had his own classes to attend. He didn’t seem to mind though, and readily took up the role of big brother and protector. 

One day, while he was at Watanuki’s Haruka stopped by. They didn’t often meet up at the shop, but when they did his son was even more hostile than usual. 

“Just finished dropping off Mei?” Watanuki asked. 

“Keep her name out of your mouth,” Haruka said. “What did you text me for if Dad was already here?” 

“I have an errand only a well abled man can do,” Watanuki started. 

“No,” Haruka said, “Send Dad.” 

“I’m fine with doing it,” Shizuka said as his lover and son glared at each other. 

“Well, I need you here,” Watanuki said. He wouldn’t say for what when pressed, and Haruka pressed him hard. Finally, Haruka agreed to the task, and Watanuki told Shizuka something interesting. 

“I’ve met Mei.”

“How? She hasn’t told me she’s come to the shop.”

“That’s because I didn’t meet her in the traditional sense. I met her in a dream. I told you she had powers, even beyond those of Haruka-chan and Reiko-chan.” 

Her mother and father died in a car crash. Mei was not there, and she thinks she’s lucky for that reason alone. But she was there when Uncle Shizuka came and picked her up from her great-Aunt’s house. He took her to another temple, one that he owned, and told her that she will live with him from now on. She was five. 

When she was about to turn eight, she learned who Watanuki Kimihiro was. Her uncle and aunt, or her new adoptive parents, spoke about him constantly. As did her two adoptive big brother and sister. 

She met him in a dream. He bent down, and held out a hand to her. 

“You must be Mei,” he said. He smiled at her, and she smiled back at him. 

“I’m Mei,” she said. 

“I’m Watanuki Kimihiro.” 

“I know. My parents speak of you often.”

“Good things, I hope.”

“Haruka-kun doesn’t like you.”

“Does Haruka-chan like anyone?”

“Me.” 

“He would, wouldn’t he?” Watanuki straightened up, “You’re awfully young to be wandering around in dreams. It can be dangerous. You might lose yourself.” 

She considered the fact that she was chased around by monsters daily, who had only stopped when Haruka started walking her places. “I think I’m finding myself.”

“Wise words.”

She shrugged. 

“You have powers that go beyond that of Haruka-chan’s and Reiko-chan’s. Let me teach you.” 

She looked up at him. One of his eyes was the same as Shizuka’s. She nodded. “Okay, teach me.” So he did. 

And when she woke up in the morning, she called him up on her phone. 

Haruka’s mother asked him what he planned on doing with the rest of his life. He could tell that his father is listening, so he stated it plainly. 

“I’m never getting married.” 

“Why not?” his mother asked. 

“I’m not dooming another generation of Doumekis’ to this fate.” 

“What do you mean?” his father asked, looking up from his newspaper at last. 

“Great-grandfather helps Watanuki, you help him, and even I help him. That’s three generations all helping that man,” Haruka spat out, “I’m not having any children that have to put up with him.”

“I see,” his father said, but did he really? Did he understand the Doumeki family curse that their entire family was under? Even young Mei had been drawn into it, and she wasn’t more than ten. 

“It’s not a curse,” his mother said, “We choose this.” 

“Well,” Haruka said, “I didn’t.” 

He’s studying to become a doctor because he wants to help people. He doesn’t want to tie himself to the temple, and moves out. He rarely stops by, and his parents don’t bug him. Watanuki doesn’t either, and he tries to tell himself he’s content with that, but he knows that Mei has replaced him. 

Watanuki has found a new toy to play with, and being a Doumeki is a curse. 

He wholeheartedly believes in this, even if Reiko doesn’t seem to mind. 

It goes like this: Reiko fell for Megumi when she was fourteen, and stayed in love with her when she was twenty, and then at twenty-five they’re pledging their lives to each other. Everyone’s there for the ceremony. Everyone that is aside from one of the central players in their lives. Watanuki is unable to attend, but he sent over a fine wine, so in the end, Reiko thinks it is okay. 

Haruka looks at her with something like happiness for her, and her life choices, and she doesn’t know how to tell him that she’s planning on having a lot of children to carry on the family tradition. Someone needs to watch over _him_ after all. Haruka and her won’t be around forever, and if she doesn’t step up then no one will. She told Megumi what she wanted to do, and the beautiful woman she was giving herself to agreed readily. 

“Watanuki has been a huge force in our life. It wouldn’t be right to leave him alone,” she had said. And Reiko agreed. But, unlike her parents that wasn’t the main reason she was willing to have children with Megumi or even marrying her. No, she loved her, was in love with her, and would like nothing more than to build a home with her. 

\

“Mei,” Watanuki says, and he sounds completely awake, but when Shizuka looks over his eyes are closed, and his lips are barely moving. He waited until Watanuki woke up to ask him what that had been about. 

“Mei visits me in my dreams, and I teach her about things in that way.” 

Kurogane, Fai, and Watanuki’s not brother, but something more, Syaoran are in town when Shizuka stops by with supplies. He ends up having to get more, and settles in for a night of drinking with some of the people who most understand what it means to care for someone who's made a dangerous decision. 

Kurogane reveals after the seventh round that soon he and Fai will settle down somewhere. He’s gray at the edges of his black hair, and he knows his time to die will be soon. 

“Everyone wants a home at some point,” Kurogane says. And all Shizuka can do is think about his home, and his family, and his kids. 

Doumeki Ayame dies, and it’s like everything that made the temple what it was is lost. He helps out with the funeral, and Kohane takes care of the arrangements, and between them they make it work. They have to make it work. It was his mother after all. She might not have been completely understanding, but she loved the children, and she loved them as well. She might have cursed Watanuki’s name, and Shizuka has no proof of that, but she was a great woman. He will miss her in the worse way. 

“Brother dearest, I am about to ask you for the biggest favor in the history of favors.” 

“Why are you calling me at two am?” Haruka asked grumpily. 

“It’s afternoon where I am,” Reiko says, and that could be anywhere, so Haruka rolls over in bed, and listens to her speak, because she won’t get off the phone till she’s said her peace. “I want your sperm,” she says, “For Megumi.” 

“Why?”

“I want our child to carry the Doumeki genes,” she says. 

“No.” 

“No?”

“No,” he says. 

Reiko in the end decides to be the carrier of her and Megumi’s child. They hope that their child will be born with spiritual powers, and Haruka knows it is for Watanuki’s sake that they do this. He hates that it’s for Watanuki’s sake that anything is being done. What about what the unborn child would want? 

When asked what he thinks they should name the child, he insists upon “Yuka,” because it sounds so close to being Yuuko. Yuka doesn’t look like a traditional Doumeki man, and Haruka hopes that means the curse will be broken with him. 

(He should know better than to wish for things like that.) 

On Megumi’s way back to the temple, she got lost. She hadn’t been living in the city long, just long enough that she didn’t think this would happen to her. There was a quiet indignity to be had when one found oneself stumbling through the streets with a handful of groceries that one’s significant other had just demanded one pick up. Pregnant women, she was told, were fearsome things. But if the worst she’d have to deal with was Reiko’s craving for pickles and ice cream, then she supposed that’d be alright. 

Megumi wanders around the streets for a bit, and then one step leads to the next, and she finds herself in someone’s backyard. To be specific, she apparently finds herself in Watanuki’s backyard. She recognizes him from the sole photo that he and her mother took. A younger Shizuka is in the photo too. 

Watanuki is smoking, but he quickly puts it out when he sees her. 

“Watanuki?” she says. 

“Megumi?” he asks. “What are you doing here?” He looks concerned, and not at all like Haruka has described him. 

She smiles at him, “I must have a wish in order to have met you. I wonder what it is?”

He smiles at her, “It must be a wish you cannot accomplish on your own.”

“I wonder,” and she stepped closer to him with her bag, and he looked at her. They watched each other. “It must have something to do with Reiko.” 

“Reiko-chan? Probably.” 

She hummed, and thought about that. What wish couldn’t she accomplish on her own concerning Reiko? What wish would she be willing to pay a price for? 

“I want you,” she said, “to write charms for a safe delivery. For when her time comes.”

“Done,” Watanuki said, and she wondered if she knew the child that Reiko was to have was for his sake. That they had been so happy when they found out it was going to be a boy. 

“And the price?” she asked. 

“Wine, and stay for dinner with me,” he said. 

She went home and laid her head on her wife’s stomach and just felt her son kicking away. _You’re going to love him,_ she thought to herself, _just like we do._ She couldn’t wait for her son to be born. 

Shizuka’s graying, and he hates it. Kohane says it adds charm to him. Watanuki takes to calling him an old man. 

Haruka has left the temple, and Reiko has taken to populating it with children. She’s almost constantly pregnant, and Shizuka would worry about the strain on her body if she didn’t glow with maternal pride each time. The temple will be well taken care of, he’s sure. 

He’s going to die, he knows. 

His grandfather died in his 70s, so Shizuka figures he has another good 15 years left. 

He’s going to die, and he wonders if Watanuki realizes this. If he’s considered that when he made his wish. Shizuka knew he hadn’t. The egg is still with him, and it’s so warm to his touch. 

He gets a text from Watanuki and he answers it. It demands supplies, and Shizuka gets them. He makes his way to the temple, and Watanuki scolds him for coming in through the back. He tells him about Yuka’s first steps, and Watanuki smiles. 

“He sounds lovely.” 

_She had him for you_ , he doesn’t say. Instead he eats more food. It’s blander than it usually is, and he wonders why that is until he realizes he’s losing his sense of taste. He’s old now. He wonders if Watanuki takes note of his graying hair, and shaking hands, and cares. But he knows that Watanuki more likely than not doesn’t. He doesn’t love him, and never will. 

Yuka grows into a fine young man, and so Shizuka tries to be surprised when one day he comes home and declares that he’s met Watanuki. 

“I’m going to marry him,” Yuka declares. It hurts so much more than it should. 

On April 1st, Himawari comes to town, and they go to visit Watanuki with Kohane. 

“You still call her ‘Tsuyuri’?” Watanuki asks, “Haven’t you been married far too long for that?”

“Old habits die hard,” he says. 

And this too is an old habit. He sees his wife and friend to the door, and then lingers on. Watanuki takes him by the hand, and they make slow love in his bed. It feels like goodbye. 

“Yuka.” 

“Oh, Grandpa, what’s up?” 

“I have something to give you,” Shizuka says, and he hands over the egg. It never leaves his person, not really. He explains to this fourteen year old child what it’s for, and what it does. Unlike Haruka who had handed it back to him, Yuka’s fingers close over it. 

“You can’t make me do that,” Haruka had said. 

“Alright, Grandpa,” Yuka says, “I will take care of it.” But what he really means is, _I will take care of him._

And that has to be enough. 

He doesn’t return to Watanuki’s side. He avoids him, ashamed of his age, and wanting to prove something to himself. It hurts in the worse way, but what else can he do? 

“My parents ask me what I plan on doing with myself, and I stressed that I don’t plan on having kids. I’ve already helped raise most of Reiko’s. She has six, you know,” Mei says to Kimihiro. They are on the phone, and she is running an errand for him. She doesn’t have his sight like her uncle-father does. So this is how they must rely on one another.

“Tragic,” he says, “I’m sure you would have beautiful children, Mei-chan.” 

“I’m not interested in that. I am interested in learning more tricks of our trade. When can I enter the shop?”

“When you have a big wish that only I can answer.” 

“Haruka got to see you by wishing to see you, why can’t I?”

“It doesn’t work like that. You’ve met me before. Even if it was a dream. And you know me since we talk all the time.” He laughed, “You don’t need to enter the shop.” 

Shizuka and Kimihiro were a thing, even as much as both denied it. Shizuka would just shake his head at her, and Kimihiro would raise an eyebrow at her. It doesn’t bother her like it bothers her older brother, and she accepts it for what it is. Two old souls in need of each other. Shizuka was obviously in love with Kimihiro, but the person who meant the most to Kimihiro was long gone. 

She watched as her uncle-father fell apart in his old age. He became a ghost of himself, and she knew that his time was coming. He went to Kimihiro’s one last time, and then refused to go again. 

“Doesn’t that bother you?” she asked Kimihiro in a dream. 

“I can’t make him come,” Kimihiro said, “This was the deal between us after all.” 

“He’d come if you asked him too,” Mei said, and knew she was speaking the truth. But Kimihiro was already shaking his head. 

“He’s done enough, the least I can do is respect his wishes. He’ll come if he wants to.”

“You’re both really stubborn,” Mei sighed, “and this is so stupid.” 

Kimihiro patted her head, and that wasn’t fair, she was already an adult. 

“It is what it is.”

Yuka turns twenty, and marries a nice girl named Aoi. They have a son named Sayaka who looks exactly like Haruka did when he was a baby. Haruka looks stricken when he sees Sayaka. Reiko looks happy. Yuka is pleased with himself and with his lovely wife. She is not pleased to hear about her son’s fate from Haruka. But that is alright in the end. 

This is all his fault, he has cursed his family, but he can’t regret it. This is his choice, the one he made, and so he lives with it. They live with it. 

Shizuka was taken to his bed, and couldn’t move. They called for the doctors, and Kohane set about doing all she could to make sure he was comfortable. His time was soon, she knew. 

But, even still, Kohane couldn’t help but think he had lived a full and happy life. He had been able to stay with the man he loved all this time, and had had children who loved him dearly. He had grandchildren he adored, and even now they were filing in to say goodbye to him. 

But he had also not seen Kimihiro in nearly seven years. He had passed on the task of caring for him fully onto Yuka’s younger shoulders and retreated into solitude. She couldn’t figure out why he would do that. 

She had asked him, and gotten just the short explanation that it was time. 

“I can’t stand straight beside him anymore,” he said, “I can’t shoot straight anymore.” 

So now, Kohane was the dutiful wife as she listened to the doctors. They didn’t know what was wrong with him, but she knew. He was dying of a broken heart. Loving someone for so long and getting so little in return had done this to him. But that had been Shizuka’s choice, and she knew that he did not resent Kimihiro no more than she could. This was what it meant to love someone with all your heart. This is what it meant to give it all up for someone else. 

“What can I do to make it more comfortable for him?” she asked as she saw the doctor out of Shizuka’s room. 

“Stay beside him, comfort him, be with him,” the doctor said, “that’s all you can do.” 

So, Kohane did. She took up knitting as she waited beside Shizuka’s bedside. She would bring him what he asked for, and all day they would talk. 

“Do you have any regrets?” he would ask her, and she would think seriously about that. 

“I don’t regret my choices,” she would say, and honestly she didn’t. She had three beautiful children, and so many lovely grandchildren. The only thing she almost regretted was that Haruka was not happy, but people’s happinesses had to be found for themselves. She couldn’t make her son happy. “I’ve lived a good, long life. And so have you. Do you regret your choices?”

“No,” Shizuka would say, “I don’t.” 

Haruka’s father takes to his bed, and nothing his fellow doctors can do will make him leave. Father is an old man, and hopelessly in love with someone who didn’t even love him back. Haruka tries his best but his best just isn’t enough. His father will die, and it will be soon. 

“He doesn’t have any regrets,” his mother says, “I asked him.” 

Haruka can’t believe that, so he asks his father himself. Doumeki Shizuka is old, no longer the man he once was, but even still his voice is still of patriarchal command as he says: “Of course I don’t regret it.” 

“None of it?”

“I’ve spent all my life doing what I wanted to do most. I don’t regret it. So, Haruka, make sure you spend the rest of your life doing what you want.” 

Haruka looks at his father, and considers the hospital where he works. He considers how little contact he’s been forced to have with Watanuki Kimihiro over the years since Mei took over. Is he happy? He’s certainly less stressed. 

“I already am, Dad.”

“Good,” Shizuka says, “all I want is for my children to be happy.” 

“You wanted to see me, Daddy?” Reiko asked in a quiet voice. She had her youngest child in her arms, and the small girl was already reaching out for Shizuka. The older man allowed the child to curl up next to him and touch his beard. 

“Yes,” Shizuka said simply. He patted Naomi’s head, and then looked at her, “are you happy, Reiko?” 

“Of course I’m happy,” Reiko said instantly without hesitation, she wondered what that was about as her father closed his eyes. 

“Good. That’s all I want.” 

“Are you happy, Daddy?” she asked. Shizuka considered that, and considered Naomi. 

“Yes.” 

“Of course I’m happy,” Mei said simply. Yuka nodded at her side. They were both happy, and both very busy with errands from Kimihiro. It was never a dull day working for the man. Her adopted father looked satisfied with their answers. 

“I never expected to meet you in a place like this,” Watanuki says. 

They are sitting on the shop’s porch, and Shizuka is younger and has all his hair. His bones don’t creak and ache, and he is no longer in pain. 

“Kimihiro,” he says. He almost cries, but doesn’t. 

“For someone like you to be dreamwalking,” Watanuki says, “it must be approaching that time, I guess.” 

Shizuka knows that Watanuki means that he’s going to die. But Doumeki had accepted that long ago. He would die, and he would never see Watanuki again, and he had accepted that but, now his body is young like it once was, and Watanuki is right there. He kisses him before he considers not touching him. And it feels so real, it feels like it used to feel. 

“Yes,” Watanuki says to a question he can’t ask. He undresses Watanuki on the porch, and things are so much easier in the dream world. Things are so much more intense. There is no need to prepare, and Shizuka slides down on Watanuki’s cock with a groan. There is something beyond intimate, and he can feel himself wanting to cry, but holds back the pain and focuses on the pleasure. This is his true goodbye. 

He rides Watanuki, and Watanuki touches him, feeling up his body as if to reassure himself that this at least is real enough for now. 

Watanuki spills inside him, and Shizuka can feel that, even as much as he knows it’s not real. Even as much as he knows that Watanuki’s clothes will not be stained by his release, it’s still something of a victory to see one of Yuuko’s kimono’s ruined by his hands. One last victory. 

He climbs off Watanuki, and lays down next to him. 

“I guess this is . . .” and he can’t finish, he honestly can’t as he stares at Watanuki. He does not want to leave this beautiful dream no matter what. He does not want to leave him. He never has. 

“This has been an interesting reunion,” Watanuki says, and slides out of Yuuko’s kimono, “and I’m sure it won’t be our last.” 

“Yeah,” Shizuka says, “it won’t be.”

Grandfather dies in his sleep, a smile on his face. Mei says that he said all the goodbyes he wanted to a long time ago. Yuka chooses to believe her. 

He goes to Watanuki’s shop, and tells him the news. 

“Oh,” Watanuki says, and just that. He gives him some wine for an offering. And then retreats to his porch for a smoke. Yuka lets him mourn in his own way, going back to his family’s side to mourn properly. 

They all sit up with the body, talking quietly, and about nothing at all. He misses his grandfather with a fierce ache. Sayaka isn’t allowed in the room, and so Aoi sits in his room with him and some of his mother’s younger kids. She is a good woman, and he loves her in his own way. But he has always loved Watanuki more. 

The egg is warm in his pocket, as it has been since his grandfather gave it to him. How long had he carried this burden for? 

But now, at least, his grandfather can rest easy, and know that Watanuki will be taken care of. Yuka will make sure of that. 


	5. In Due Time

Everything comes to an end, this Watanuki Kimihiro knows well. Such is the cycle of life, and such is the nature of the world. All things come to an end, and the years pass and pass further more into oblivion. He is so young in body, but yet his mind and spirit are so old. 

He dreams of a butterfly. 

He greets Sayaka when he comes. The boy is about twenty and the spitting image of his great-grandfather. He is also studying what his great-grandfather once studied. A cycle repeats, and Kimihiro wonders if he is responsible for that. 

He tells him about the dream he had, and Sayaka interprets it as best he can. Which isn’t at all. So Kimihiro tells him what it means. 

“My powers have grown strong enough,” Kimihiro says, “I can leave this place now.” But that is not what he will do. He will wait now. For those that he has lost. For those that have moved on, he shall wait. Because that was his choice back then, and that is his choice now. He will wait because that is all he can do now, in a world in which all his friends have passed on. 

After Doumeki, Himawari had died, and then Kohane as well. And in the future, he knows that Haruka-chan, Reiko-chan, and Mei-chan will die too. And still, he will wait. Because Yuuko has not returned, and because he has lost so much more than her now.

“Where are your grandparents buried again?” he asks Sayaka another day. Sayaka comes because Yuka has grown too old, he says. Another cycle repeating. 

The boy tells him. Kimihiro dresses himself, and goes to the cemetery. It is his first trip out since he gained the ability to leave, and it might be his last. Already he can feel the shop calling out to him, already he can feel it in his bones. More than a hundred years have passed. The world is so different and strange to him that he doesn’t know where he is. So much has changed. 

But, he concentrates not on the changes, but what has remained the same. The Doumeki family temple is where it always was. The university as well. And, there coming up as he steps off the strange bus, is the cemetery. 

He stops and buys flowers from a flower shop, picking carefully the red, white, and blue blossoms for Kohane, and the white and yellow blossoms for Doumeki. Thankfully it is not snowing yet, but soon it will snow. He can feel it in the cool touch of wind against his cheeks. The money had come from Sayaka in exchange for liquor, and so Watanuki resolves the next time to come with more personal gifts. 

But for now, he steps his way past graves, and heads for a spot that Sayaka and Yuka before him described well enough. Past a tree, and towards the back of the graveyard is the Doumeki family plot. There is Haruka senior, and his wife. Doumeki’s father and his second wife. Doumeki’s mother, because even at the end she considered herself a Doumeki. 

And there is Doumeki and Kohane. Kohane’s inscription is simple yet true. She was a beautiful wife and mother, and yet so much more. She was his beloved one, like a daughter or sister, and the pain of losing her has yet to fade, even so many years later. He lays her flowers on her graves, and touches the headstone. But he knows she is not there, has not been there for years and years. The grave is empty of even the faint suggestion that she lingers on, and he is glad for that. He would not want her to suffer. 

He says a few words of prayer for her, and is thankful that her grave is kept so clean that he does minimum work. The Doumeki kids are good kids. 

Then, he turns to Doumeki’s grave. Even years later, with so many kids and grandkids and great-grandkids, he is still Doumeki in Kimihiro’s eyes. The only one he tried to maintain a distance from and failed. 

_I’m sorry_ he almost says, but isn’t sure what he should be apologizing for. Doumeki made his choice, and Watanuki respects that. So he doesn’t say that outloud, and instead brushes leaves off the headstone, and lays the flowers down. To him, Doumeki was a relic from a life he had lived so long ago. The only one who truly knew him before everything, even more than Himawari had known him. Even more than Kohane could guess at. For better or for worse, Doumeki had been special. And no matter how many of his sons and grandsons come in his place, nothing can change that. 

“Thank you,” Watanuki says as he stands in front of both of their grave markers, “I’ll be waiting.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. This piece has always made me terribly sad, and I am glad that I finally have shared and posted it. 
> 
> xxxHolic meant and will always mean so much to me. 
> 
> Take care of yourselves.


End file.
